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RICHARD  WHATCOAT, 
Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 


.MW 


HISTORY  UAPR  8 


% 


Methodist  Episcopal  Church 


UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


By  ABEL  STEVENS,  LLD. 

AUTHOR    UK 

IHF.    HISTORY    OF   THE    RELIGIOUS   MOVEMENT   OF   THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 
CALLED    METHODISM."    ETC. 


VOLUME  IV 


N  E  W  YORK:    F.  A  TON  i   M  A I N  S 
CINCINNATI:   CURTS  A    JENN 


PREFACE. 


George  I.  Sexey,  Esq. 

My  Dear  Sir  :  In  committing  to  the  press  this  concluding  volnrn* 
of  the  "History  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,"  I  would  grate- 
fully acknowledge  my  obligations  to  you.  If  I  have  succeeded,  to  any 
satisfactory  degree,  in  my  task,  it  has  been  largely  owing  to  the  reliefs 
which  your  kind  attentions  have  afforded  me  from  cares  and  anxieties, 
that  would  have  seriously  interfered  with  it.  Your  honored  father 
appears  briefly  in  my  narrative  ;  the  first  collegiately-educated  native 
preacher  of  his  Church,  except  Fisk,  and  a  man  of  most  sterling  talents 
and  character,  the  friend  and  colaboivr  of  Bangs,  Emory,  Soule,  Ostran- 
der,  Rice,  and  the  other  strong  men  of  the  second  generation  of  American 
Methodist  preachers,  he  will  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  subjects  of  the 
later  history  of  Ms  denomination.  The  Church  is  happy  to  recognize  in 
you  the  worthy  son  of  so  worthy  a  father.  It  finds,  in  this  its  third 
generation,  the  descendants  of  its  early  and  heroic  itinerants  not  only 
thronging  its  ministry,  but  founding,  on  enduring  financial  bases,  its 
educational  and  other  great  institutions. 

In  my  former  work  (the  "  History  of  the  Religious  Movement  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  called  Methodism,"  etc.)  I  brought  the  narrative 
down  to  1839,  the  Centenary  of  British  Methodism,  and  designed  to 
conclude  the  present  work  at  the  same  period.  There  was  no  import- 
ant reason,  however,  for  the  latter  purpose,  as  American  Methodism 
has  its  own  distinct  centenary.  But  it  would  be  as  inexpedient  to  ex- 
tend the  record  to  the  latter  date  as  to  limit  it  to  the  former  ;  our  recent 
controversies  cannot  yet  be  satisfactorily  narrated ;  the  chief  actors  in 
some  of  them  are  still  living,  the  families  of  many  of  the  actors  in 
the  earlier  ones  still  survive.  There  is  also  a  hopeful  tendency  of 
reunion  among  our  denominational  parties  which  should  no',  be  dis- 
turbed by  a  return,  however  guarded,  to  their  old  disputes.  Not  till 
years  hence  can  the  historian  safely  review  these  unfortunate  events. 

I  have  had  a  twofold  design  in  this  narrative:  first,  to  show  the  real 
development  of  Methodism  on  this  continent,  its  interior  life,  and  its 
genetic  conditions  ;  for  in  these  we  must  find  the  hot  lessons  of  its  his- 
tory for  all  time.     Secondly,  to  keep  within  such  chronological  limits 
juld  not  require  an   inconvenient  number  of  volumes,  and  yet 
should  allow  of  a  substantially  complete  history  of  the  Church,  of  its 
inception,  its  organization,  its  chief  personal  agents,  its  theological  and 
Unary  systems,  and  finally  those  adjuncts  of  its  practical  system  - 
Publishing,  Educational,  Sunday-School,  and  Missionary  institutions— 
which  have,  for  the  present  at  least,  rounded,  if  not  perfected  its  scheme. 
.  brought  out  in  a  closely  consecutive  record  of  events  and  charao- 
.  to  me  the  genuine  constituents  of  such  a  historj  im 


4  PBEFACE. 

the  denomination  now  needs.  I  do  not  presume  to  ihink  that  I  hava 
adequately  prepared  for  it  such  a  history ;  hut  I  have  done  what  I  could 
toward  it.  The  period  at  which  I  close  admits,  with  peculiar  conven- 
ience, of  this  comprehensive  plan.  All  these  adjuncts  of  our  practical 
system  had  appeared  before  that  date ;  and  without  violence  to  the 
canons  of  historical  writing,  I  have  been  able  to  trace  these  institutions 
down  to  our  own  time,  estimating  their  original  significance  by  their 
prospective  results.  The  period  also  fittingly  closes  with  the  disap- 
pearance of  Coke,  Asbury,  Whatcoat,  Lee,  and  most  of  the  great  orig- 
inal leaders  of  the  denomination  from  the  scene.  A  historian,  or  even 
an  epic  poet,  could  hardly  demand  a  more  befitting  denouement  to  his 
story,  or  more  interesting  and  romantic  materials  for  it. 

What,  therefore,  remains  unrecorded  in  my  volumes  is  but  the  chron- 
ological continuation  of  the  system  here  described,  its  continuous 
working,  without  much,  if  anything,  essentially  different,  except  a  new 
generation  of  preachers,  and  the  occasional  controversies  and  schisms 
which  have  disturbed,  but  hardly  impaired  it,  and  which  I  trust  my 
readers  will  be  as  happy  as  myself  to  escape. 

In  following  my  main  design,  of  exhibiting  the  vital  principles  and 
workings  of  Methodism,  I  have  necessarily  been  most  minute  in  the 
earliest  data,  condensing  as  I  advance  toward  our  own  times.  From 
the  peculiar  organization  of  the  Church,  Methodist  history  is  pecul- 
iarly biographic,  a  fact  which  enhances  much  its  popular  interest,  but 
also  the  difficulties  of  its  writers.  Scores,  if  not  hundreds,  of  personal 
characters  are  more  or  less  sketched  in  these  volumes ;  and,  in  order  to 
relieve  the  biographical  tone  of  the  story,  many  are  portrayed  at  their 
introduction  to  the  ministry,  others  at  some  important  event  in  which 
they  took  a  prominent  part,  and  still  others  not  till  their  obituary  in 
the  Conference  Minutes.  Not  a  few  important  characters  are  hardly 
more  than  mentioned ;  they  were  necessarily  referred  to  the  times  oi 
their  obituary  record,  which  come  after  my  final  date ;  they  will  afford 
precious  material  for  another  volume,  for  one  volume  more  will  be 
necessary  to  bring  the  history  down  to  its  centenary  year.  I  have 
no  design  of  writing  that  volume,  at  least  not  within  the  next  ten  or 
fifteen  years.  1  have  gathered  ample  materials  for  it,  but  they  will  be 
left  in  the  library  of  the  Drew  Theological  School  for  the  use  of  some 
abler  hand.  After  many  years  of  hardest  toil,  and  the  postponement  of 
other  literary  plans,  my  design  has  been  accomplished  as  well  as  I  feel 
myself  able  to  do  it ;  that  design  has  been,  not  to  exhibit  the  Church 
merely  in  what  is  sometimes  called  its  "heroic  period,"  but  in  its  full 
maturity,  its  complete  structure,  as  it  stands  before  us  to-day,  except- 
ing only  the  extension  of  some  of  its  outer  works.  Its  "  heroic  period," 
I  trust,  still  continues,  and  will,  while  it  has  indefinite  frontier  fields  to 
invade.  Its  history  will  be  equally  indefinite,  in  continuance,  at  least. 
I  gladly  give  way  to  my  successors  in  the  grateful  task  of  recording  its 
later  triumphs.  Abel  Stevens. 

Omenta,  Mamaroneok,  N.  Y., 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  V. 

FROM  THE  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1792  TO  THE 
GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1804:  CONTINUED. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

methodism  ix  the  easteex  states, 

coxtin'ted  :  1796-1804. 


Valentine  Cook 

His  great  Public  Debate 
Daniel  Hitt. 


AsW  in  the  East ^feo^lrv 

Success U  u-**v-S»  — 


Wiibraham  Conference Vi 

Lorenzo  Dow 14 

Continued  Success 15 

Evangelical  Adventures  of  Hib- 

bara  and  Vannest J6 

First  Conference  in  Maine 23 

'i?«u™iia*. :::::: 


_  Services  and  Character 

Matthews  and  Chieuvrant 

Thornton  Fleming 

Asa  Bhinn    

Methodism  in  the  Erie  Country 

The  Roberts  Family 

Local  Preachers 

Robert  B.  Roberts 


State  of  the  Church 27 

William  Beauchamp 2'.< 

Daniel  Webb 3:3 

Epaphras  Kibbv 3S 

Hardships  in  Maine 40 

Conversion  of  General  M'Clel- 

lan's  Family 41 

Joshua  Bonle 44 

Results 49 

Lorenzo  Dow 50 

Elijah  Hedding's  Services  and 

Character .  52 

Methodism  in  New  England  in 

61 

The  Bishops  in  the  East 64 

Farewell  Tour 64 

Itinerant  Recruits 65 

Thomas  Branch's  Death  in  the 

Wilderness 66 

Martin  Ruter  and  Laban  Clark  68 

Persecutions 7 

Great  Success 78 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

KETHODUK   IN   THS  WEST,   1790-1  SOI.  J£J2  M'Cull   \    WW.  V.  \.V.  \\\\ 

■   rn  Methodism 7  i  John  Bale 

The  Redstone  Country 75 Judge  M'Lean's  estimate  of  him 


He  l)ccomes  a  Bishop 

His  thoroughly  Western  Char- 
acter  

His  Episcopal  Residence  a  Log- 
cabin  

Illustrations  of  his  Character. . 

Curious  Rencounter  with  a 
Young  Preacher :   Note 

Methodism  in  the  Erie  Confer- 
ence   

Reaches  Ohio 

Progress  in  Western  Virginia.. 

Quinu's  Labors  there 

Ministerial  Recruits 

General  Morgan 

The  Ilolston  Country 

M'K<ndree  and  Bruce 

The"  Western  Conference  "... 

Benjamin  Lakin's  Labors  and 
Character 

Valentine  Cook  in  the  Holston 
Country 

His  subsequent  Life 

His  Death  and  Character 


Paee 
75 

75 
79 

79 
80 
81 
82 
82 
84 
84 
84 
84 
85 
86 

87 

87 
88 

90 

91 
92 
93 
93 
94 
95 
96 
9b 
96 

97 

99 
100 
104 

107 

lo8 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

METHODISM  IN  THE  WEST,  CONTINUED  : 

1796-1804. 

Page 

M'Kendree  takes  Charge  of  the 

Western  Field 109 

Poythress's    Decline    and   In- 
sanity     109 

Introduction  of  Camp-meetings  114 
Remarkable  Scenes  at  them  ...  115 

Grenade 116 

David  Young 116 

Making  a  Circuit 120 

The  Southwest  opens 131 

Tobias  Gibson  at  Natchez 132 

He  falls  a  Martyr  to  his  Work.  13? 

Recruits  for  the  Field 133 

Learner  Blackman 134 

Methodism  in  Ohio 136 

M'Cormick 136 

Dimmick 136 

Kobler  sent  to  Ohio  137 

Hunt  and  Smith  there 142 

The  Miami  and  Sciota  Circuits  143 
Advance  of  the  Church 
Philip  Gatch  in  the  West 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  GENERAL  CONFERENCES  OF  1800 
AND  1804. 

Page 

Coke  returns  jO  America 167 

Session  of  1800 168 

Ordination  of  Whatcoat 169 

Accounts  of  the  Conference  . . .  170 

Lee 170 

Coke 171 

Asbury 171 

"  Allowance  "  to  Preachers 172 

Other  Provisions 172 

Anticipatory  Measures 173 

Richard  Allen,  the  first  African 
Ordained  in  the  Church. .   . .   173 

Antislavery  Enactments 173 

William  Ormond  against  Sla- 
very    173 

Leading   Members    follow  his 

Example . .  174 

Additions  to   the  Law  of  the 

Church  on  the  Subject 175 

Religious  Excitement 177 

143! Catherine  Bruff  (Catherine  En- 

145|     nails) 177 

Kobler  at  the  Grave  of  Gatch. .  147 J  Coke  revisits  the  United  States  178 

M'Cormick's  End 147  j  General  Conference  of  1804 ....  178 

Salem  Ohio 148  ;Tts  Members 178 

Methodism  m  Cincinnati 149  j  Unequal  Representation '. .  179 

At  other  Points  in  Ohio.    150 [Necessity  of  a  Delegated  Gen- 

Bostwick  in  the  Western  Re-     _        eral  Conference 179 

serve 151 1  Revision  and  Changes  of  the 

Methodism  enters  Indiana  and  Discipline 179 

Illinois 152 , Important  Declaration  on  the 

Benjamin  Young -153      National  Sovereignty 180 

Hardships  there 153  Slavery  again  Discussed 182 

ii  in  Michigan 154  The  Adjournment    184 


Planted  at  Detroit 

Asbury  in  the  West  in  1797 

Terrible  Trials  there 

lie  has  to  Retreat 

He  Returns  in  1800 

Conference  at  Bethel,  Ky.  . 
Its  Academy 


154 
154 
155 
156 
157 
157 
157 


The  First  Camp-meetings 158|The  Local  Ministry 

Sufferings  on  the  route 159  Joshua    Marsden's    Vievrs 


Returns  in  1801 159 

Conference  in  Tennessee 160 

Back  again  in  1802 161 

Reposing  on  the  Holston  Heightsl61 

Conference  at  Bethel 161 

The  Bishop  in  a  Storm 161 

Reflections  on  his  Sufferings  . .  162 
Again  in  the  West  in  1803.  ...  163 
Conference  at  Cynthiana,  Ky..  163 

Early  Life  in  the  West 165 

Statistics 166 


CHAPTER  XXII. 
REVIEW  OF  THE  period  :  1796-1804. 

Numerical  Gains 185 

The  Ministry 185 

Locations 186 

..186 
of 


American  Methodism 186 

Itinerants  who  fell  by  the  Yel- 
low Fever 188 

John  Dickins's  Character  and 

Death 190 

Deaths  of  Preachers 191 

Geography  of  the  Church 192 

Its  rapid  Growth  in  the  West. .  193 
Ratio  of  its  Growth  compared 

with  that  of  the  Nation 194 

Conclusion 195 


C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S. 


BOOK   VL 

FROM    THE    GENERAL    CONFERENCE    OF    1804    TO    THE 
GENERAL   CONFERENCE    OF    1820. 


CHAPTER  I. 

METHODISM   IX   THE    SOUTH. 


P*g» 


Statistical     Strength     of    the 
Church 197  Asbury's   Last   Visits    to 


CHAPTER  III. 

METHODISM  IX  THE  SOITH,  1804-1820: 


COXCLIDED. 


the 


Methodism  in  Savannah,  Ga...   19S;     South 233 

Lee  there 198  Hi?  Episcopal  Equipage 233 

oncl. 


199  John  Bond 234 

200  Renibert  Hall . . 234 

201  Perry  Hall 235 

201  Last  Interview  with  Otterbein.  235 

204  Asbury  in  Old  Aire 23*5 

•_  15  .Ministerial  Celibacy l3H 

James  Russell   . .    . ." 206  Prosperity 

lie  learns  to  read  on  his  Circuit  206]Asbury's  indomitable  Persht- 

HisElequence 207      ence 238 

President    Olin's    Estimate    of        |Southern  Methodism    239 

him 208  Obituary  Notices 240 

Lovick  and  Roddick  Pierce  . . . 


Charleston,  S.  C 

Richmond,  Va 

Alabama 

Lorenzo  Dow 

(  'haracter  of  Lewis  Myers 
William  M.  Kennedy 


Richmond  Nolley'a  Conversion  210 

His  Early  Ministry 210 

A  Camp-meeting  Scene 210 

Samuel  Dunwody  211 


CHAPTER  II. 

METHODISM  IX  THE  SOUTH,  1804-1820: 
COXTIXUED. 

Job  Guest 213 


CHAPTER  IV. 


METHODISM     IX     THE     MIDDLE     AXD 
NOBTHERN   STATES,    1804-1S20. 

Condition  of  the  Church 245 

Camp-meetings 247 

John  Emory -i  \~ 

Forsakes  the  Bar  for  the  Pulpit  248 
Further  Career  and  Character. .  24'J 
Jacob  Gruber  tried  for  oppos- 

Alfred  Griffith 214      irig  Slavery 250 

Wilson  Lee  and  Black  Charles  214  Garrettson  and  Ware 'i-ri 

John  Early 215  Marvin  Richardson 253 

His  long  Services  and  Character  216  A  Camp-meeting 253 

apers 218  Nathan  Bangs. ." 256 

rion  of  William  Capers.  219  Jleman  Bangs 256 

■  •  Preach 220  Robert  Seney  258 

■  with  Asbury 220  Samuel  Luckey 259 

inds  Methodism  in         Origin  of  the  African  Methodist 

221  Episcopal  Church 260 

222  Richard  Allen  becomes  a  Bish  . 
225  Zion  African  Methodist  Epis 

225  copal  Church 

226  Methodism  ap  the  Hudson  .... 



inga  "•  Exhorting  " 


ttev: 

His  remarkable  story 

Capers  at  Charleston 

Colored  Preachers 

Change  of  Antislavery  Policy. 

Cap  rs'sfi  '  haracter  226  In  Troy. 

Beverly  Waugh 228  Noah  L« 


John  Davis 229  Albany  

Alfred  Griffith tady 264 

Robert  R.  Roberts 231  Ministerial  Reinforcements....  264 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  V. 

METHODISM  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AND 
NORTHERN  STATES,  1804-1820  : 
CONCLUDED. 

Page 

Methodism  in  the  Interior  of 
Pennsylvania  and  New  York  266 

Old  Canaan  Circuit 266 

Peter  Vannest  crosses  the  Gen- 
esee River 267 

First    Class    and    first    Camp- 
meeting  beyond  it 267 

George  Lane 2'i7 

Glezen  Fillmore  "Exhorting"  268 
Thomas  Smith's  Northern  Ad- 
ventures     269 

A  Scene  in  Lyons,  N.  Y 270 

Organization  of  Genesee  Con- 
ference     271 

Methodism  in  Canada 272 

William  Case,  "  the  Apostle  to 

the  Indians  " 272 

Progress  in  Canada 274 

The  War 274 

Robert  Hibbard  perishes  in  the 

St.  Lawrence 275 

Declension   of   the    Provincial 

Church  by  the  War 276 

Its  renewed  Prosperity 277 

Genesee  Conference   meets   in 

Canada 277 

Great  Revival ....   278 

Continued  Success 278 

Canadian  Methodism  in  1820..   279 
Methodism  of  the  Middle  and 

North  iu  1820 279 

Obituary  of  Preachers 280 

Asbury 283 

CHAPTER  VI. 

METHODISM   IN   THE   EASTERN   STATES 

1804-1820. 

Review 286 

Lee 286 

Aaron  Sanford 280 

Ministerial  Recruits 28 

Wilbur  Fisk 28 

Importance  of  his  Services 288 

His  Character 290 

Edward   T.   Taylor,   Mariners' 

Preacher,  Boston 295 

His  Romantic  History . .  2i»6 

Joshua  Soule 300 

Elijah  Hedding 301 

His  Review  of  Ms  Itinerant  Life  301 

(ieorgu  Pickering 303 

Martin  R liter i 

Progress  of  the  Church  304 


CHAPTER  VTI. 

ASBURY  AND   LEE   IN  THE   EAST. 

Papo 

Asbury  in  the  East 305 

His  Views  of  New  England  . . .  305 
At  Buxton  Conference,  Maine.  306 
Great  Religious  Excitement.. .  306 

At  Lynn,  Mass 307 

Characters  of  Preachers 308 

Great  Revival 309 

At  Canaan,  N.  H 310 

Travels  and  Labors 311 

At  Boston 312 

The  first  Conference  there 312 

At  New  London,  Conn 314 

Increasing  Prosperity 315 

Newport,  R.  1 316 

Captain  Beale 317 

At  Boston 317 

Conference  at  Monmouth,  Me..  317 

At  Pittsfield,  Mass 319 

At  Winchester,  N.  H 319 

Lee  Revisits  the  East 320 

Scenes  on  his  Route 320 

Final  Views  of  New  England 

Methodism 324 

Deaths  of  Preachers 324 

Statistical  Progress 325 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

METHODISM  IN   THE  WEST,  1804-1820. 

Geography  of  Western  Meth- 
odism    328 

Progress  in  Western  Pennsyl- 
vania     331 

Pittsburgh  Conference 331 

Robert  R.  Roberts's  Hardships  331 

Gruber 332 

Usefulness  of  Shewel,  a  Local 

Preacher 332 

Thomas  Branch's  Death  in  the 

Wilderness 334 

A  Society  formed  there 334 

James  B.  Finley's  Character  . .  334 
A  great  Western  Camp-meeting  335 

Finley's  Conversion 337 

His  Labors  and  Sufferings 338 

Sketch  of  William  Swayze 339 

Charles  Elliott's  Services 341 

Alfred  Brunson 343 

Quinn    in    the    Northwestern 

Territory 341 

Whatcoat's  Salutation 344 

Jane  Trimble   ...   345 

Review  of  Quinn's  Labors  —  -"4a 
Primitive  (  amp-  meetings .....  3  P.J 
Growth  of  Methodism  in  Indiana  350 
In  Michigan 351 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

mrruoDisM  ix  Tin:  west,  continued: 
t-1820. 

Progress  in  Illinois 353 

Walker 

His  Pioneer  Adventures    .     ..  355 
M'Kendree  and  Walker  in  the 

Wilderness  355 

Walker's  Camp-meeting 356 

His  Success 

He  enters  Missouri 

y  and  Travis  there  . . 
ri  Conference  Organiz 
Walker's  Sufferii  g  . .   359 

He  Introduces  Methodism  into 

St.  Louis 

His  Determined  Struggles  there  360 
He  goes  to  the  Indian  Tribes...  363 

Labors  at  Chicago   

His  Death  and  Character. ... 
Samuel  Parker,  -'the  Cicero  of 

James    Alley's    extraordinary 

and  Labors ".   366 

tnd  Whisky. .   369 
Peter  Cartwright'd  Early  Life . .  371 
Remarkable  Scene  at  a  Quar- 
terly a      372 

His  extensive  Services 7 

David  Young 37»; 

John  Collins" 375 

Judge  M'Lean's  Conversion. . .  380 

CHAPTER  X. 

METHODISM  EN*  THE  WEST,  CONTINUED: 

1804-1 

John  Strange 

His  great  Eloquence  ...... 

U  LigeluNv's  Character  and 
Eloquence  35"> 

Bishop  TL  ..count  of 

one  of  his  Forest  Sermon-. 

Sketch  of  Henry  B.  Bascom. 

Of  Thomas  A.  Morris 

Of  John  P.  Durbin 303 

Advance  of  Methodism  in  the 
Southwest 899 

Eliaha  W.  Bowman  in  Louisiana  8  »9 

Hi=  Explorations  and  Ilardshipa  4  N I 

Scene  between  Asbury  and  Ja- 
I  Young  at  Governor  Til- 
tin's  Ib.rue 

Young  in  the  Southu.. 

Lorenzo  1  >ow  there 

Alley's  Sufferings  and  Achieve- 
ments  


Sketch  of  William  Wlnans  ....  407 
Other  Southwestern  Itinerants.  412 

CHAPTER  XL 

METHODISM  IX  TnE  WEST,  CONCLUDED: 

1804-1820. 

Richmond  Xolley  and  his  band 
of  Pioneers  set  out  for  the 

Southwest 415 

Lewis     llobbs     and     Thomas 

Griffin 415 

Death  of  Hobbs 4HJ 

NbUey's  Extraordinary  Labors  417 

Anecdote ". 417 

Makes  his  Way  into  the  Inte- 
rior of  Louisiana 418 

Perishes  in  the  Woods 419 

Daniel  De  Vinne  in  Louisiana.  422 
Mississippi  Conference  Organ- 
ized    423 

Judge  Lane 4-Jo 

Dr  Kennon 42~> 

Joseph  Travis 425 

Other  Itinerants 425 

Asbury  in  the  West 426 

His  Opinion  of  Camp-meetings  4^:7 
His  great  Interest  for  the  We 

1  li.-^  Career  closes 428 

Great     Progress    of    Western. 

Methodism 429 

It.-  Autislavery  Character 430 

Ecclesiastical  Action  on  Slavery  430 

I Camp-meeting  Excesses 432 

'The  il  Jerks"    432 

Death  of  William  Lostpeich. . .  434 

Of  George  Askin 434 

Of  Hezekiah  Harriman 435 

Aboriginal  Missions  begun 4-jo 

'  John  Stewart,  a  Negro,  the  first 

Missionary    435 

His  Singular  History  and  Suc- 

1     cess 435 

Mary  Stubbs 437 

Outspread  of  Missions 433 

CHAPTER  XII. 

GENERAL   CONFERENCES,  1808-1816. 

f  a  Delegated  Form 

of  the  Conference 43'* 



Representative  Reorganization.  440 
'•  Presiding  :  ,       'ion". .  4M 

Adopted 4  n 

i  stive  Pules"    ....  441 
p  Coke's  Relation  to  the 
Church 4ivJ 

d 


10 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

His  attempt  to  Unite  it  with 
the      Protestant      Episcopal 

Church 442 

Decisive  Evidence  that  no  Gen- 
eral Conference  was  held  be- 
tween 1784  and  1792:  Note..  443 

Coke's  Explanation 443 

His  Treatment  by  the  Confer- 
ence   444 

M'  Ken  dree  elected  Bishop 445 

Other  Proceedings 445 

The  Occasion  in  the  Baltimore 

Churches 44G 

M'Kendree's  Bemarkable  Ser- 
mon    448 

Session  of  1812,  first  Delegated 

General  Conference 449 

Leading  Members 449 

M'Kendree's  "  Address" 450 

Proceedings 450 

Local  Elders 451 

Slavery 45 1 

Temperance 451 

Elective  Presiding  Eldership . .  452 

Session  of  1816 452 

Canadian  Territorial  Question .  452 
George    and    Boberts    elected 

Bishops 453 

"  Course  of  Study  " 453 

Other  Proceedings 453 

Slavery * 454 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

AUXILIARY  PLANS  AND  INSTITUTIONS  ; 
LITERARY,    EDUCATIONAL,    MISSION- 
,      ARY,    ETC. 

Practical  Adjuncts  of  the  Meth- 

odistic  System 456 

Its  Use  of  the  Press 457 

Wesley  the  Founder  of  the  Sys- 
tem of  "  Cheap  Publications  "  457 
Great  Variety  of  his  Literary 

Works 457 

Publishing  Enterprise  of  Amer- 
ican Methodism 459 

Robert  Williams  begins  it 459 

Early  Legislation  respecting  it  459 
Origin  of  the  Book  Concern. . .  460 
Beauchamp's  "  Christian  Mon- 
itor"         460 

14  Zion's  Herald  " 461 

Progress  of  the  Book  Concern.  461 
Its  present  Condition  and  Use- 
fulness      463 

The  Sunday-School 464 

Wesleyan  Methodism  first  In- 
corp'oiates  it  in  the  Church.     465 


Pa&e 

Asbury  Establishes   the  First 

Suuday-school  in  America  . .  465 
Early  Legislation  of  the  Church 

respecting  it i65 

Sunday-School  Union 465 

Results 465 

Education 467 

Early  Attempts  for  it 467 

Asbury' s  Devotion  to  it 467 

Results 471 

Missions 47 1 

Relative  Position  of  Methodism 

in  their  History , 472 

Coke 472 

Sketch  of  the  Progress  of  Amer- 
ican Methodism  in  Domestic 

and  Foreign  Missions 476 

German  Methodism 483 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

ACTUAL  AND  PROSPECTIVE  RESULTS: 
1820. 

Statistical  Results  of  the  Period  487 

Comparative  Statistics 488 

Subsequent  Results 489 

Aggregate  Statistics  of  the  dif- 
ferent Methodist   Bodies   of 

the  United  States 489 

Relative  Importance  of  Meth- 
odism in  Modern  Protestant- 
ism   » 489 

The  Problem  of  its  Success  . . .  491 

CHAPTER  XV. 

REVIEW  OF  THE  PERIOD,  1804-1820  : 
DEATHS  OF  WHATCOAT,  COKE,  AS- 
BURY,   AND    LEE. 

Deaths  of  Preachers 501 

Whatcoat's  Character  and  Death  501 

His  Grave .    503 

Coke's  Death,  and  Burial  in  the 

Indian  Ocean 503 

Asbury' s  Estimate  of  him  ....  505 
His  great  Services  and  Charac- 
ter     505 

Asbury 507 

His  Character 508 

Last  Scenes  of  his  Life 508 

Funeral  Ceremonies  at  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1816 509 

Jesse  Lee's  Death 509 

His  Character 510 

His  Defeat  as  Candidate  for  the 

Episcopate 510 

His  historical  Rank 511 

Conclusion 511 


HISTORY 

OF  THB 

METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH, 


BOOK  V. 

FROM  THE  GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1792  TO  THB 
GENERAL  CONFERENCE  OF  1804. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


1796-1804. 

Asbury  in  the  East  —  Success  —  Wilbraham  Conference  —  Lorenzo 
Dow  —  Continued  Success  —  Evangelical  Adventures  of  Hibbard  and 
Vannest  —  First  Conference  in  Maine  —  Scenes  there  —  Conference 
at  Granville  — State  of  the  Church  —  William  Beauchamp  —  Daniel 
Webb  —  Epaphras  Kibby  —  Hardships  in  Maine  —  Conversion  of 
General  M'Clellan's  Family —  Joshua  Soule  —  Results  —  Lorenzo 
Dow  — Elijah  Hedding's  Services  and  Character  —  Methodism  iu 
New  England  in  1800  — The  Bishops  iu  the  East  — Lee's  Farewell 
Tour  —  Itinerant  Recruits  —  Thomas  Branch's  Death  in  the  Wilder- 
ness—Martin Ruter  and  Laban  Clark— Persecutions— Great  Success. 

About  September,  1797,  Asbury,  sick,  and  worn  out 

with  labors,  was  pursuing  his  way  toward  the  East, 

to  attend  the  Xew  England  Conference,  which  was  to 

sit  at  Wilbraham  on  the  19th  of  that  month;  but  on 

arriving  at  Xew  Rochelle,  X.  Y.,  he  was  unable  to  go 

further.     He  was  "swelling  in  the  face,  bowels,   and 

feet,"   and   only  after  two   weeks  could   he   place   his 

foot  on   the   ground.      On   September  12th,   when    lie 

WW  able  to  walk  but  once  or  twice  across  the  room, 
D-_ 2 


12  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

he  wrote  a  letter  to  Lee,  instructing  him  to  preside  at 
the  Wilbraham  Conference,  believing  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  himself  to  reach  it.  Though  depressed  with 
disease  and  exhaustion,  his  heart  glowed  with  the  idea 
of  the  great  cause  for  which  he  labored.  "  Methodism," 
he  exclaims  in  his  letter,  "is  union  all  over:  union  in 
exchange  of  preachers;  union  in  exchange  of  sentiments ; 
union  in  exchange  of  interest:  we  must  draw  resources 
from  the  center  to  the  circumference." 

Notwithstanding  the  arrangement  made  with  Lee, 
the  tireless  bishop  was  on  his  route  for  Wilbraham  the 
day  after  the  date  of  his  letter,  but  was  unable  to  pro- 
ceed, and  returned  to  his  comfortable  lodgings  at  New 
Rochelle,  where  he  went  to  bed  with  a  high  fever.  He 
was  disabled  for  several  weeks,  and  "  distressed  at  the 
thought  of  a  useless  and  idle  life."  "Lord  help  me," 
he  exclaims,  "  for  I  am  poor  and  needy ;  the  hand  of 
God  hath  touched  me."  Lee  proceeded  to  take  his  place 
at  the  Conference. 

The  labors  of  the  year  had  been  successful ;  extensive 
revivals  had  occurred  on  several  of  the  circuits.  There 
was  a  gain  of  three  circuits,  though,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  two  (Greenwich  and  Marblehead)  which  had  been 
distinct  were  now  merged  in  neighboring  appoint- 
ments, the  numerical  gain  is  but  one.  The  returns  of 
members  amounted  to  3,000,  lacking  one,  showing  an 
increase  of  480 — about  one  fourth  of  the  gains  of  the 
whole  Church  for  this  year.  Both  the  aggregate  ind 
the  increase  were  doubtless  larger,  for  there  are  no 
returns  from  Vermont,  though  an  extensive  circuit  had 
been  formed  within  that  state,  and  one  of  the  New  York 
Circuits,  also,  reached  into  it  and  included  several  incip- 
ient societies. 

On  the  19th  of  September,  1797,  the  New  England 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  13 

Conference  convened,  a  second  time,  in  Wilbraham, 
Mass,  Lee  presided,  and  made  the  appointments  for 
the  ensuing  year,  in  conformity  with  Asbury'a  request, 
and  with  the  approbation  of  the  preachers.  I  have  been 
able  to  glean  but  lew  particulars  respecting  the  session. 
;'  The  business."  says  Lee,  "  was  conducted  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  preachers,  and  peace  and  love  dwelt 
among  us."  Some  encouraging  tidings  were  reported 
from  the  circuits.  The  evangelists  from  Maine  had 
planned  a  new  circuit,  and  extended  considerably  their 
former  ones.  They  brought  from  Bath  Circuit,  which 
had  been  formed  the  preceding  year,  returns  to  the 
amount  of  thirty-one  members.  From  Penobscot,  where 
Enoch  Mudge  had  labored,  chiefly,  (though  appointed 
to  Bath.)  they  reported  the  news  of  an  extended  revival, 
and  an  acces-ion  of  thirty  seven  souls.  Jesse  Stoneman 
brought  word  of  a  gain  of  Dearly  one  hundred  on  Port- 
land Circuit,  and  Brodhead  reported  from  Read  field, 
ais  first  appointment  in  Xew  England,  news  of  an  in- 
gathering of  ninety-four  converts.  Philip  Wager,  who, 
after  having  traveled  as  the  first  regularly  appointed 
Methodist  preacher  in  Maine,  had  been  sent  alone  the 
last  year  into  Xew  Hampshire,  to  travel  the  first  circuit 
in  that  state,  came  back  with  the  report  of  a  gain  of 
twenty-four,  and  of  a  prospect  widening  on  all  sides  for 
the  success  cfother  laborers.  The  indefatigable  Joseph 
Mitchell  had  good  news,  also,  from  Granville.  Under 
his  zealous  labors  the  word  had  run  and  been  glorified, 
md  sixty-nine  members  had  been  added  to  the  Church. 
Evan  Rogers  reported  cheering  tidings  from  Tolland. 
Opposition  had  raged.  the  pulj.it-  of  that  regioo  had 
fulminat'  _  ist  the  new  sect  ;  hut  God  owned  them 
powerful  outpourings  of  hi-  Spirit,  and  they  bad 
gained  a  net  increase  of  seventy-three,     Woolsev  had 


14  HISTORY    OF    THE 

also  witnessed  good  results  on  Redding  Circuit,  where 
about  fifty  had  been  received.  Joshua  Hall  had  gone 
from  Needham  Circuit  to  Sandwich,  on  Cape  Cod,  and 
been  the  instrument  of  a  widespread  revival,  and  a  new 
circuit  was  now  reported  in  that  section,  w'th  forty- 
seven  members.  These  were  signal  results  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  hardworking  evangelists  of  the  time, 
and  their  hearts  warmed  within  them  at  such  evi- 
dences of  their  progress.  They  thanked  God  and  took 
courage. 

Asbury  had  sent  to  the  Conference  a  communication, 
proposing  the  appointment  of  Lee  and  two  others 
(Whatcoat  and  Poythress)  as  assistant  bishops;  the 
Conference,  as  we  have  noticed,  declined  the  proposi- 
tion as  being  incompatible  with  the  requirements  of  the 
Discipline,1  but  at  the  close  of  the  session  they  gave  Lee 
a  certificate  signifying  their  wish  that  he  would  "  travel 
with  the  bishop  and  fill  his  appointments  when  the 
latter  could  not  be  present." 2  The  eccentric  Lorenzo 
Dow  was  there,  and  repeated  his  application  (de- 
clined at  the  Thompson  Conference)  for  admission  to  the 
noble  company  of  itinerants.  Their  growing  success, 
ardent  zeal,  and  vast  labors,  enlisted  his  indomitable 
spirit ;  he  felt  a  heroic  sympathy  with  their  cause,  but 
they  still  feared  his  aberrations,  and  rejected  his  re- 
quest. Mitchell  and  Bostwick  pleaded  for  him  till  they 
could  plead  no  more,  and  sat  down  and  wept.  He  was 
allowed  to  travel  under  the  direction  of  the  presiding 
elder,  but  was  not  enrolled  with  the  band.  He  was  a 
right  hearted,  but  wrong-headed  man,  labored  like  a  Her- 
cules, did  some  good,  and  had  an  energy  of  character 
which  with  sounder  faculties  would  have  rendered  him  as 
eminent  as  he  was  noted.  Joshua  Wells,  who  had  been 
>  Lee's  Mem.,  chap.  14.  a  Lee's  His.  of  Meth.,  anno  1797. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  15 

traveling  with  Asbury,  was  present  during  the  session, 
and  aided  by  his  counsels  in  its  deliberations.8 

Five  of  the  preachers  located  this  year,  broken  down 
in  health,  or  tired  of  the  severities  of  an  itinerant  life, 
but  able  men,  Shadrach  Bostwick,  Michael  Coate,  Peter 
Jayne,  William  Thacher,  and  others  took  their  places. 

Immediately  after  the  YVilbraham  Conference,  Lee, 
agreeably  to  the  vote  of  that  body  and  the  request 
of  Asbury,  hastened  to  Xew  Rochelle,  N.  Y.,  where 
the  bishop  was  awaiting  him.  Thence  they  journeyed 
southward,  as  we  have  seen,  through  all  the  Atlantic 
states  as  far  as  Georgia.  lie  returned  to  New  York, 
laboring  night  and  day  on  the  way,  and  on  the  9th  of 
July,  1798,  left  that  city  again  for  Xew  England.  On 
his  route,  Asbury  and  Joshua  Wells  overtook  him. 
They  tarried  together  over  night,  at  Xew  Rochelle, 
Asbury  being  still  quite  unwell.  On  the  13th  they 
entered  Connecticut.  They  pressed  forward,  holding 
meetings  almost  daily,  through  Rhode  Island  and  Massa- 
chusetts into  the  heart  of  Maine.  At  Readfield  they 
proposed  to  hold  the  first  Conference  in  the  province. 
The  ecclesiastical  year,  1797-8,  had  been  the  most 
prosperous  one  recorded  thus  far  in  the  history  of  East- 
ern Methodism.  Widespread  revivals  had  prevailed, 
and  the  struggling  cause  had  everywhere  advanced, 
augmenting  its  membership  by  more  than  one  third. 
The  circuits  were  not  much  increased  in  number,  but 
greatly  extended,  especially  in  Vermont,  Xew  Ham[>- 
shire,  and  Maine,  the  former  of  which,  though  it  had 
hitherto  yielded  no  returns,  now  reported  a  considerable 
membership.  Many  new  societies  had  been  organized 
in  all  the  Xew  England  state>,  several  chapels  erected, 
and  a  large  band  of  local  preachers  formed  and  brought 

»  A6bur}'s  Journal-,  anno  17i»7. 


16  HISTORY    OF    THE 

into  effective  co-operation  with  the  traveling  ministry. 
The  plans,  which  had  hitherto  been  incipient,  now  began 
to  develop  their  power  and  results.  There  was  a  grow- 
ing consciousness  of  stability  and  vigor,  in  the  new 
communion,  of  no  small  importance  to  its  efficiency ; 
and  the  doctrines  of  Methodism — so  liberal  and  yet  s*i 
vital — began  to  be  more  generally  approved,  except  b) 
those  who  were  officially  interested  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  theology  which  had  hitherto  prevailed.  The 
truth  had  advanced  victoriously  among  the  new  settle- 
ments in  the  wilderness  of  the  Penobscot.  The  people 
welcomed  the  joyful  sound,  and  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  were  received  into  the  Church.  The  divine  flame 
had  also  spread  along  the  banks  of  the  Kennebec,  and 
many  had  been  turned  from  darkness  to  light.  Great 
multitudes  had  been  awakened  and  converted  on  Cape 
Cod ;  and  in  Connecticut,  especially,  the  excitement 
extended  as  fire  in  stubble ;  Middletown,  New  London, 
Tolland,  Heading,  and  Litchfield  Circuits  had  made 
rapid  progress,  not  only  in  numbers,  but  in  the  provision 
of  chapels. 

Hibbard  had  been  called  out  during  the  year  from  the 
local  ministry,  to  assist  the  preachers  on  Pittsfield  and 
Litchfield  Circuits.  He  has  left  us  an  account  of  the  re- 
vivals there,  in  which  he  says:  "I  think  more  than  one 
hundred  were  awakened  on  these  two  circuits.  Some 
joined  the  Congregationalists,  and  some  the  Baptists, 
and  some  the  Methodists.  The  work  of  God  in  convict 
ing  and  converting  and  sanctifying  souls  was  very  evi- 
dent. Persecutions  raged  some  on  Litchfield  Circuit, but 
the  truth  was  in  power;  sometimes  they  fell  as  one  shot 
down  in  battle,  and  would  lay  without  strength  from 
half  an  hour  to  two  hours,  when  they  would  arise 
happy  in  God.     Our  Presbyterian  brethren  and  others 


M  ET  II  Oil  IS  I     KIM  SCOPA  I-    C  II  [7RC  II.  17 

wore  afraid  it  was  a  delusioD.  J>ut  the  r<  viva]  of  re- 
ligion, having  these  extraordinary  signs  attending  it, 
was  highly  necessary  to  confonnd  dead  formality.  Some 
conversions  were  extraordinary.  In  one  place  I  preached 
in  a  private  honse,  where  the  man  and  his  wife  and  on? 
neighbor  made  all  the  congregation.  The  man  and  his 
wife  professed  religion,  but  their  neighbor  did  not. 
However,  before  I  came  again  in  four  weeks,  that  per- 
son was  converted,  and  had  reported  around  by  what 
means  this  change  was  wrought ;  so  that  thereby  many 
others  came  out,  and  I  had  about  seventy  to  preach  to, 
instead  of  three ;  and  before  long  many  could  testify 
that  God  for  Christ's  sake  had  made  that  preaching, 
which  some  call  foolishness,  the  happy  power  of  salva- 
tion to  their  souls.*' 

Peter  Vanne>t  arrived  in  New  England  this  year. 
We  have  seen  that  on  receiving  his  first  appointment 
in  the  Middle  States,  in  179G,  he  evaded  it.  He  says: 
"They  gave  me  an  appointment,  yet  I  did  not  go  out 
that  year;  but  I  suffered  more  affliction  that  year  than 
I  had  for  many  years  before.  I  did  not  know  whether 
this  was  for  disobedience  or  not,  so  I  promised  the  Lord 
I  would  go  if  he  would  go  with  me.  I  went  to  Con- 
ference, and  Bishop  Asbury  said  to  me,  'I  am  going  to 
send  you  to  England;  will  you  go?'  I  said,  'Yes,  sir.' 
He  said,  ;I  mean  New  England,  and  they  are  wise 
people  there ;  it  will  be  a  good  school  for  you.  Last 
year  I  appointed  you;  now  I  will  send  you  a  great  way 
from  home,  and  you  will  not  run  away.'  So  I  went  on 
to  Middletown  Circuit,  in  Connecticut,  in  1797."  His 
record  of  his  labors  is  full  of  incidents,  characteristic 
of  the  man  and  the  times. 

Though  his  name  is  on  the  list  of  probationers  for 
.7  '7,  it  is  n  -t  affixed  to  the  Middletown  appointment 


18  HISTORY    OF    THE 

The  omission  was  doubtless  accidental.  He  labored 
with  remarkable  success  on  that  circuit,  along  with 
Peter  Jayne.  "  We  traveled  together,"  he  says,  "  like 
David  and  Jonathan.  At  that  time  the  societies  were 
few  and  small,  but  remarkably  kind  to  the  preachers. 
At  the  first  appointment  I  attended  on  the  circuit,  two 
men  came  to  dispute  with  me;  I  kept  to  the  Bible  lor 
help ;  they  soon  got  out  of  argument.  I  told  them  that 
some  men's  religion  was  in  their  heads  and  not  in  their 
hearts — cut  their  heads  off  and  their  religion  was  all  gone. 
The  people  laughed  at  them  and  they  went  their  way. 
They  troubled  me  no  more  in  that  place.  At  that  time 
we  had.  but  few  chapels  in  New  England;  we  preached 
in  such  places  as  we  could  get.  At  South  Britain  the 
society  consisted  of  three  members.  I  preached  there 
in  an  underground  kitchen.  A  young  man  came  to  the 
meeting  with  a  pack  of  cards  in  his  pocket,  for  company 
to  go  to  a  public  house  near  by  to  play  with;  but  the 
Lord  smote  him,  sent  him  home  to  burn  his  cards,  and 
spend  part  of  the  night  in  prayer  to  God  to  have  mercy 
on  his  soul.  He  sought  the  Lord  with  all  his  heart, 
and  soon  after  found  peace.  He  lived  some  years  happy 
in  the  Lord,  died  in  hope,  and,  I  trust,  is  in  heaven. 
At  a  locality  near  this  place,  where  wickedness  pre- 
vailed, I  went  to  preach,  and  gave  out  the  hymn  be- 
ginning with  '  Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow.'  A  man,  a 
deist  by  profession,  said  that  the  singing  struck  him 
like  peals  of  thunder.  He  felt  as  if  the  judgment  was 
coming,  and  he  was  not  ready.  Several  were  converted. 
At  another  place,  about  seven  miles  from  Oxford,  a  man 
lived  that  had  once  belonged  to  the  Methodist  Church, 
but  had  lost  his  religion,  and  in  a  backslidden  state  he 
married  a  woman  of  no  religion;  when  he  began  house- 
keeping he  got  reclaimed  and  found  peace  with  God 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  1'.' 

fTe  was  Dot  willing  to  eat  bis  morsel  alone,  but  wishing 
his  neighbors  to  partake  with  him  of  the  good  things 
of  God,  invited  me  to  come  and  preach  at  his  house. 
The  time  appointed  was  very  unfavorable ;  there  was 
nearly  two  feet  of  snow,  with  a  hard  crust  on  it;  and 
I  had  three  appointments  that  day,  and  about  fourteen 
nine*  to  travel.  When  I  came  to  the  place  the  people 
looked  at  me  as  if  I  was  as  strange  a  being  as  they  had 
ever  seen.  The  next  morning,  while  the  man  of  the  house 
was  attending  to  his  business  at  the  barn,  the  woman 
and  I  got  into  conversation;  she  passed  into  a  great 
passion,  and  declared  that  if  ever  T  came  there  again  she 
would  have  me  carried  away  on  a  rail.  But  I  made  a 
regular  appointment  there,  and  soon  got  a  good  society. 
We  held  a  quarterly  meeting  not  far  from  that  place,  at 
Derby;  the  woman  and  her  husband  came  to  it,  but  the 
conduct  of  the  former  was  such,  that  the  presiding  elder 
observed  that  he  had  never  seen  a  woman  possessed 
with  so  many  devils  before,  yet  that  same  woman  got 
converted  and  became  a  very  pious  and  useful  member 
of  the  Church.  What  is  too  hard  for  the  Lord  to  do? 
Glory  be  to  his  holy  name  forever!  At  another  place, 
about  three  miles  from  the  latter,  I  formed  another  so- 
ciety, but  a  number  of  men  agreed  to  give  me  a  ride  on  a 
rail.  They  came  to  meeting;  alter  preaching  they  went 
out  into  the  portico  and  made  a  grc  it  noise;  I  went  to 
the  door  to  speak  to  them  ;  the  man  of  the  house  took 
hold  of  me  and  pulled  me  back,  and  said  that  they 
vanted  to  gel  me  out.  I  opened  the  door  and  said, 
Gentlemen,  if  you  wish  to  see  and  hear  how  we  meet 
class,  please  to  walk  in.  They  did  so;  I  spoke  to  the 
class,  and  Likewise  to  them,  and  prayed  for  all;  they 
went  away  a-  gentle  a-  lamb-:  so  I  learned  thai  love  is 
stronger  than  weapons  of  war.     We  had  a  society  at  a 


20  II  I  STO  RY    OF    TT1  E 

place  called  Ponsett,  near  Old  Haddam.  A  member  of 
that  society,  by  the  name  of  Stevens,  a  shoemaker, 
moved  to  a  village  called  Black  Rock.  Seeing  the 
wickedness  of  the  people,  it  grieved  his  righteous  soul 
day  by  day,  and  feeling  a  wish  for  his  neighbors'  salva 
tion,  he  invited  me  and  my  colleague,  Peter  Jayne,  1o 
preach  in  his  house,  which  was  very  small.  The  first 
time  that  I  went,  I  think  there  were  two  or  three  who 
ventured  into  the  house,  and  one  or  two  who  looked 
through  the  window.  We  continued  there  a  regular 
appointment;  after  a  while  the  people  found  that  we 
were  not  so  heretical  and  dangerous  as  had  been  supposed, 
and  soon  filled  the  house,  and  the  Lord  began  to  pour 
out  his  Spirit  upon  them.  The  house  became  too  small ; 
so  we  moved  to  a  larger  one,  and  in  a  short  time  we 
had  a  large  and  respectable  society  in  that  place.  Some 
years  after  I  saw  a  stationed  preacher  in  New  York, 
who  told  me  that  he  was  raised  there,  and  accord- 
ing to  his  age,  when  I  received  his  father  into  society 
he  was  about  two  years  old.  So  the  Lord  works  in  his 
own  way,  glory  be  to  his  holy  name !  I  traveled  the 
year  1797  and  part  of  1798  on  that  circuit;  we  had 
good  times,  and  nearly  doubled  our  numbers.  We 
were  attacked  in  those  days  everywhere  for  our  prin- 
ciples. I  will  give  an  example.  As  I  was  on  my  way 
from  Norwich  to  Bozrah,  a  man  came  up  to  me  in 
great  haste  and  concern,  and  asked  me  if  I  was  a  Meth- 
odist preacher.  1  said,  'Yes,  a  poor  one.'  He  said, 
'  I  have  been  wishing  and  looking  to  see  one  this 
several  years,  and  I  am  glad  that  I  have  found  one  at 
last.'  I  asked  him  what  he  '  wanted  with  him.'  He 
«aid,  *  To  make  him  ashamed  of  his  erroneous  principles.' 
*  'What  are  they?'  I  asked.  'You  hold  to  falling  from 
grace,  don't  you?'    I  said,  '  Not  so  ;  wre  hold  to  getting 


MK  Til  01)  I  ST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCir.  21 

grace  and  keeping  it.'  '  But  you  allow  that  people  can  fall 
from  grace  ': '  '  That  is  another  thing :  angels  fell ;  Adam 
fell :  and  St.  Paul  said,  I  keep  under  my  body,  etc.,  lest 
when  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a 
castaway ;  if  you  do  not  believe  the  Scriptures  you  are 
mi  infidel.''  He  said  he  believed  in  degrees  of  falling  ; 
that  we  may  fall  partly,  but  not  finally.  'Now,  sir,  if 
iron  please,  I  will  ask  you  a  few  plain  questions.  Have 
you  ever  had  grace?'  He  answered, '  Yes.'  '  Have  you 
any  grace  now?'  'To  be  sure  I  have,  as  I  cannot  lose 
it.'  'Xow  be  honest:  Don't  yon  get  angry?'  'Yes, 
I  do.'  'Do  you  not  swear?'  'Yes,  I  do.'  'Do  you 
not  get  drunk?'  'Yes,  I  do.'  'What!  you  do  these 
things?  why,  you  have  no  more  religion  than  the  devil. 
Sir,  I  allow  two  degrees  in  foiling:  the  first  is  to  fall 
from  grace  as  you  have,  if  you  ever  had  any  ;  and  if  you 
do  not  repent  and  do  your  first  works,  the  next  fall  will 
be  into  hell,  to  be  miserable  forever.'  lie  pat  whip  to 
his  horse  and  went  off  in  a  hurry,  and  I  thought  that 
he  would  not  be  in  haste  to  find  another  Methodist 
preacher."  i 

In  1798  Vannest  entered  Xew  York,  and  was  col- 
league of  Thomas  Woolsey  on  Croton  Circuit.  He  re 
turned  to  Xew  England  the  next  year,  and  traveled  two 
years  respectively  on  Whitingham  and  Essex  Circuits 
in  Vermont.  Methodism  was  recent  and  unpopular  on 
these  circuits  ;  and  at  that  time  the  labors  and  trials  of 
the  itinerants  were  such  as  would  hardly  now  appear 
credible.  Vannest  did  brave  service  there;  he  scattered 
the  seed  of  the  truth  in  many  new  places,  and  by  his 
deep  devotion  and  characteristic  cordiality  won  the 
interest  of  the  people,  many  of  whom  were  added  to  the 
ties.     In    1801    he   was   Bent   to   Connecticut,  and 

4  Letter  to  the  author. 


22  HISTORY    OF    THE 

traveled  New  London  and  Pomfret  Circuit,  lie  fol- 
lowing  two  years  he  was  traversing  the  wilds  of  Upper 
Canada,  as  we  have  seen,  with  Sawyer  and  Bangs, 
among  the  new  settlements  on  the  Bay  of  Quinte  and 
Oswegatchie  Circuits ;  he  returned  and  spent  two  years 
on  circuits  in  New  Jersey,  and  then  passed  to  the  west- 
ern section  of  New  York  as  a  missionary.  Methodism 
spread  rapidly  in  that  new  country,  as  our  pages  show. 
Vannest  had  under  his  care,  the  next  year  after  his 
arrival,  the  large  Cayuga  District,  which  he  traveled 
two  years. 

He  returned  again  to  New  Jersey  in  1810,  and  labored 
on  Gloucester  Circuit.  The  following  four  years  he  had 
charge  of  the  East  Jersey  District.  He  traveled  six 
years  longer  on  Salem,  Freehold,  Bergen,  Gloucester, 
and  New  Mills  Circuits,  all  in  his  native  state.  In  1821, 
after  a  laborious  ministry  of  twenty-four  years,  he  re- 
tired into  the  superannuated  ranks  of  the  Philadelphia 
Conference,  and  at  the  organization  of  the  New  Jersey 
Conference  was  placed  in  the  same  relation  to  that 
body.  He  "  endured  hardness  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus 
Christ."  His  labors  in  New  England,  in  Canada,  in 
Western  New  York,  and  New  Jersey,  were  instrumental 
in  the  rescue  of  hundreds  of  souls.  He  survived  to  the 
extreme  age  of  ninety-one.  No  one  who  was  a  member 
of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  when  he  entered  it  was 
living  when  he  died  in  1850. 

The  returns  of  members  amounted  to  4,155,  a  gain  of 
1,216.  Connecticut  had  1,455  ;  Rhode  Island,  162 ;  Mas- 
sachusetts, 1,194;  Maine,  936;  New  Hampshire,  122; 
Vermont,  286.  Connecticut  had  gained  254;  Rhode 
Island  had  lost  15 ;  Massachusetts  had  gained  281 ; 
Maine,  320;  New  Hampshire,  30;  Vermont,  (which  had 
made    n  >    previous    returns,)    286.     The  aggregate   in- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  23 

crease  in  Xew  England  tins  year  was  more  than  three 
times  as  great  as  that  of  all  the  rest  of  the  Church 
throughout  the  republic  and  Canada.  The  local  preach- 
ers scattered  among  the  societies  amounted  about  this 
time  to  twenty-five  at  least.5  With  such  results  the 
laborious  itinerants  wended  their  way  from  their  scat- 
tered posts,  with  grateful  hearts  and  good  courage,  to 
their  Conferences  at  Readfield  and  Granville,  in  order  to 
plan  the  work  of  another  year. 

The  former  is  memorable  as  the  first  Methodist  Con- 
ference held  in  Maine.  It  began  the  29th  of  August, 
and  was  an  oeeasion  of  no  ordinary  interest.  Method- 
ism, though  recent  in  the  province,  had  taken  profound 
hold  on  the  sympathies  of  the  settlers,  and  hundreds 
flocked  to  the  small  village  of  Readfield  to  witness  the 
first  assembly  of  its  pioneers  in  their  new  and  wilder- 
ness country.  The  place  was  thronged  with  the  devout, 
who  came  to  enjoy  the  spiritual  advantages  of  the  occa- 
sion, and  the  worldly,  who  were  there  to  reap  gain  from 
it.  "Several  came,"  says  Lee,  "in  their  carts,  with 
cakes,  etc.,  to  sell.  Xo  one  interrupted  us  in  the  meet- 
ing-house, but  many  were  walking  to  and  fro,  and  paid 
no  attention  to  the  meetings." 

The  session  lasted  two  days,  Wednesday  and  Thurs- 
day. Ten  preachers  were  present :  Timothy  Merritt, 
John  Brodhead,  Robert  Yallely,  Aaron  Humphrey, 
Roger  Searle,  Joshua  Taylor,  Jesse  Stoneman,  Enoch 
Madge,  and  John  Finnegan;  Asbnry  made  the  tenth. 
On  Wednesday  '•  we  were  closely  engaged  all  day.' 
writes  Lee,  -i  much  united  in  love  and  in  the  work  oi 
tin-  ministry  ;  we  had  >ome  good  accounts, from  different 
places,  of  a  gracious  revival  of  religion."  Timothy  Mer- 
ritt cheered  th<  m  with  news  of  the  triumphs  of  the  truth 
6  Lee's  History,  anno  IT'.is. 


2 J  HISTORY    OF    THE 

•along  the  banks  of  the  Penobscot ;  Enoch  Mudge,  w  he 
had  been  appointed  to  Pleasant  River,  had  spent  much 
time  with  him,  and  they  jointly  extended  the  circuit 
into  many  new  settlements ;  the  word  sped  its  way,  and 
one  hundred  and  fifty-three  souls  had  been  gathered 
into  the  new  societies,  besides  hundreds  of  converts, 
who  either  entered  other  communions,  or  as  yet  none. 
Kennebec  Circuit  had  heretofore  yielded  no  returns,  but 
now  reported  one  hundred  and  five.  On  Bath  Circuit 
about  seventy  had  been  added  to  the  little  flock.  Such 
were  some  of  the  "good  accounts"  of  which  Lee  speaks. 
Nearly  one  thousand  Methodists  had  been  raised  up  in 
the  province,  though  but  about  four  years  had  passed 
since  Philip  Wager  was  appointed  as  the  first  Methodist 
preacher  to  labor  exclusively  within  its  limits. 

Wednesday  was  a  "great  day,"  says  Asbury.  The 
Conference  began  its  usual  business  very  early,  and 
closed  it  by  eight  o'clock  A.  M.,  in  order  that  the  rest 
of  the  time  might  be  devoted  to  public  exercises.  An 
immense  throng  had  gathered  in  the  village.  At  nine 
o'clock  the  doors  of  the  new  and  yet  unfinished  chapel 
(the  first  erected  in  Maine)  were  thrown  open  for  the 
"  large  number  of  Methodists,  and  none  else."  Shut  in 
from  the  throng,  they  held  a  love-feast  together.  Rep- 
resentatives of  their  common  cause  were  there  from  all 
the  surrounding  regions,  and  from  several  distant  places. 
"  It  was  a  good  time,"  says  Lee ;  "  they  spoke  freely 
and  feelingly"  of  their  Christian  experience,  and  re- 
newed their  vows  with  God  and  each  other.  The  mul- 
titude without  heard  their  fervent  ejaculations  and 
exhilarating  melodies,  and  waited  impatiently  for  the 
public  services. 

At  eleven  o'clock  the  doors  were  opened.  From  "one 
Lhous^nd  to  eighteen  hundred  souls,"  says  Asbury,  at- 


METHODIST    E  PI SC  0  1-  K  L    C  II  U  R C  II.  25 

tempted  to  get  into  the  building;  it  was  a  solid  m 
of  human  beings.     The  galleries,  which  were  yet  unfi 
ished,  cracked  and  broke  under  the  pressure,  producing 
much  alarm,  and  Blightly  injuring  a  few;  but  the  serv- 
ices proceeded.     Asbury  ascended  the  rude  pulpit  and 
addressed  his  itinerant  brethren  from  2  Cor.  iv,  1,  2 
"Therefore,  seeing  we  have  this  ministry,  as  we  have 
received  mercy,  we  faint  not,"  etc. 

Well  could  their  great  leader,  bearing  in  his  own  person 
the  marks  of  his  excessive  labors,  exhort  the  pioneers 
Methodism  in  Maine  to  "faint  not"  in  their  extraor- 
dinary privations  and  toils.  They  gathered  strength 
from  the  veteran's  words,  and  welcomed  the  daily  jour- 
ney-, the  incessant  preaching,  the  wintry  storms,  and 
the  spiritual  victories  of  another  year.  Lee  tells  us  that 
it  was  a  "good  sermon,"  and  that,  though  the  bishop, 
before  the  meeting,  appeared  to  be  weak,  yet  during  the 
discourse  he  waxed  "strong  and  courageous."  The 
ordination  services  followed,  and  were  witnessed  with 
great  interest  by  the  throng.  Lee  describes  it  as  a 
scene  of  deep  solemnity. 

The  ordination  being  over,  Lee,  whose  heart  was  full, 
mounted  the  pulpit,  and  proclaimed  to  the  multitude  of 
Methodists  present,  "The  God  of  peace  shall  bruise 
-  •  in  under  your  feet  shortly."  Rom.xvi,20.  A  divine 
influence  fell  upon  the  assembly;  tears  flowed  in  all 
parts  of  the  house.  "My  soul,"  he  says,  "was  ani- 
mated with  the  presence  of  the  Lord.  It  was  a  precious 
time  to  many."  He  could  not  but  feel  profoundly  linger 
the  associations  of  tl.  .  only  five  years  before  be 

wandered  a  solitary  evangelist   through  the  province, 
without  a  single  Methodisl  ome  him;  now  multi- 

tudes of  them  u  ere  rising  up  over  it-  length  and  breadth, 
and  spreading  into  bands,  and  these  were  but   the  be- 


26  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ginnings  of  a  great  work,  which  he  unwaveringly  be- 
lieved would  go  on  prosperously  through  all  time. 

Protracted  as  the  services  had  been,  there  was  still 
another  exercise  before  they  dispersed.  They  partook 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  together.  It  was,  Lee  tells  us,  "  a 
most  solemn  time."  More  than  two  hundred  persons 
communed.  "I  stood  astonished,"  he  exclaims,  "at  the 
sight !  to  see  so  many  people  at  the  Lord's  table,  when 
it  is  not  quite  five  years  since  we  came  into  this  part  of 
the  world-" 

Thus  closed  the  first  Conference  in  Maine.  The 
preachers  immediately  hastened  to  their  appointments. 
Asbury  was  away  the  same  day.  Lee  tarried  to  com- 
plete some  unfinished  business,  "thankful  to  God  for 
the  privilege  of  being  at  the  first  Conference  ever  held 
in  the  province  of  Maine." 

Let  us  now  pass  to  the  western  session  at  Granville, 
Mass.,  held  shortly  afterward. 

Asbury  pressed  on  westward  with  his  usual  speed. 
He  was  at  Portland  the  Sabbath  after  the  Readfield 
Conference,  (Sept.  1,)  having  rode  "sixty  miles  in  two 
days,"  under  the  heat  of  the  sun,  and  over  "  desperate 
roads  and  rocks."  He  preached  there  in  the  "  Widow 
Bynton's  back  room,  to  about,"  he  says,  "twenty-five 
persons,  chiefly  women  ;  my  subject  was  2  Peter  ii,  9. 
In  the  afternoon  I  preached  to  about  double  the  number 
on  Phil,  iii,  8.  I  returned  Sabbath  evening  to  my  very 
kind  friend's  house,  Major  Illsley's."  The  next  day  he 
traveled  "thirty  miles  to  Wells^"  on  Tuesday  forty- 
seven  to  Salisbury:  on  Thursday,  4,  he  reached  Lynn, 
and  the  next  day  preached  from  Gal.  v,  6,  7,  8.  He 
started  the  following  day  for  Boston,  but  the  repeat 
at  YValtham,  in  the  house  of  Bemis,  presented  a  stronger 
charm.     "The  heat,"  he  says,  "was  excessive,  and  the 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  27 

sun  met  me  in  the  face,  so  that  I  was  almost  ready  to 
faint  in  tbe  carriage.  I  changed  my  mind,  and  con- 
cluded tu  come  on  to  Waltham,  and  spend  another  Sab- 
bath. I  missed  my  way  a  little,  but  came  in  about 
Beven  o'clock,  riding,  since  two  o'clock,  twenty  miles." 
He  preached  there  the  next  day  (Sabbath)  twice.  It 
irac  the  finest  portion  of  the  year,  and  the  retirement 
and  beauty  of  the  farm  tempted  him  to  delay,  a  tempta- 
tion which  it  would  have  been  better  for  his  health 
oftener  to  indulge.  He  tarried  three  days,  reposing  on 
Monday  and  Tuesday,  but  on  Wednesday  renewed  his 
journey,  and  preached  at  Weston.  The  few  brethren 
of  that  society  had  been  prospered  somewhat,  and  had 
built  a  chapel,  "a  well  designed  building,"  says  Asbury. 
He  went  into  their  new  pulpit  and  encouraged  them 
from  1  Cor.  xv,  58:  "  Therefore,  my  beloved  brethren, 
be  ye  steadfast,  immovable,  always  abounding  in  the 
work  of  the  Lord,  forasmuch  as  ye  know  that  your  labor 
is  not  in  vain  in  the  Lord."  Hastening  forward,  he 
reached  Granville  by  Tuesday,  18. 

The  Conference  at  Granville  began  at  eight  o'clock 
on  Wednesday,  September  19,  1798,  three  weeks  after 
th<-  >e--ion  at  Readfield.  It  was  the  largest  assemblage 
«>f  Methodist  preachers  which  had  ever  been  convened 
in  Xew  England,  about  fifty  being  present,  many  of 
them  from  the  neighboring  circuits  of  New  York. 
"  We  had,"  says  Asbury,  "  many  weighty  and  delib- 
erate conversations  on  interesting  subjects,  in  much 
plainness  and  moderation;"  and  he  tells  us  that  they 
"  had  more  good  accounts  of  the  work  of  God  in  differ- 
ent circuits."  Here,  as  at  Readfield,  encouraging 
tidings  W( •!■»•  brought  from  all  directions.  On  Granville 
Circuit,  where  the  Conference  sat,  more  than  forty  souls 

bad  been  received  into  the  new  communion.     Pittsfield 
D— 3  d 


28  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Circuit  reported  a  gain  of  more  than  seventy-five. 
Michael  Coate  could  speak  of  the  triumphs  of  the  truth 
on  Middletown  Circuit,  where  great  numbers  had  been 
awakened  and  converted,  and  forty-two  were  received 
into  the  Church.  Shadrack  Bostwick  had  seen  remark- 
able displays  of  the  divine  influence  on  New  London 
Circuit ;  the  societies  had  been  invigorated  on  all  sides, 
and  about  one  hundred  members  had  been  added  to 
them.  David  Buck  had  good  news  from  Reading  Cir- 
cuit; refreshing  showers  had  fallen  through  its  length 
and  breadth,  and  an  addition  of  seventy-three  members 
had  been  made  to  its  classes.  Methodism  had  taken 
root  on  Martha's  Vineyard,  and  Joshua  Hall  reported 
thirteen  members,  the  first  returns  from  that  island. 
The  society  in  Provincetown  having  endured  persecu- 
tions courageously  had  at  last  prevailed,  its  chapel  was 
erected,  and  during  the  last  year  scores  had  been  con- 
verted to  God  within  its  walls,  a  gain  of  moi&  than 
one  hundred  was  reported  at  the  present  Conference. 
Ralph  Williston  brought  cheering  news  from  Vermont ; 
more  than  two  hundred  had  been  received  into  the  new 
societies  of  that  state  the  past  year.6  There  had  been, 
in  fine,  general  prosperity  in  Massachusetts,  Connecti- 
cut, and  Vermont;  and,  within  the  range  of  circuits 
represented  by  their  pastors  in  the  present  Conference, 
there  had  been  an  increase  of  about  one  thousand 
members.7 

Ten  new  preachers  were  received  at  this  session. 
"Praise  the  Lord,  O  my  soul!"  exclaims  Lee,  as  he 
records  the  fact.  Among  these  young  men  were  Epa- 
phras  Kibby,  Daniel  Webb,  Asa  Heath,  and  also  those 
two  remarkable  men,  so  generally  known  alike  for  their 

«  Lee's  Mem.,  p.  240.  Vermont  had  made  no  returns  previous  to 
this  Conference.  7  Ibid. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  2\) 

great  labors  and  great  eccentricities,  Billy  Hibbavd  and 
Lorenzo  Dow,  the  latter  after  no  little  opposition,  as  we 
have  seen.  Twelve  were  ordained.  The  public  services 
were  impressive ;  Lee  speaks  of  "  a  blessed  time  in 
)  reaching,"  when  preachers  and  people  were  melted 
into  tears.  The  Conference  closed  on  Friday,  21 ;  the 
next  day  Asbury  and  Lee  "  began  their  flight,"  as  the 
latter  calls  it.  They  were  accompanied  by  twelve  of 
the  preachers,  who  had  been  designated  to  the  neighbor- 
ing circuits  of  New  York.  By  Sunday  afternoon  they 
had  crossed  the  boundary,  and  the  bishop  was  preaching 
the  same  evening  at  Dover. 

William  Beauchamp  was  a  man  of  genuine  greatness, 
one  of  nature's  noblemen  and  God's  elect.  He  was 
born  in  the  County  of  Kent,  Del.,  April  26,  1772.  His 
father,  a  respectable  Methodist  preacher,  removed  in 
the  year  1788  or  '89  to  the  western  part  of  the  state  of 
Virginia,  settled  on  the  Monongahela  River,  and  after 
residing  there  six  or  eight  years,  again  emigrated  to 
little  Kanhawa  River,  in  Wood  County,  Va.,  where 
he  and  Rees  Wolfe,  another  preacher,  formed  societies. 
At  an  early  period  of  his  life  Beauchamp  had  religious 
impressions.  When  about  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  old 
he  became  a  member  of  the  Church.  Soi«e  time  after  he 
began  to  exhort.  He  was  sent  to  a  seminary  of  learn- 
ing, and  acquired  a  knowledge  of  English  and  Latin 
grammar  In  1790  he  taught  school  in  Monongahela. 
At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  began  to  preach.  In  1793, 
the  twenty-first  year  of  his  age,  In-  left  his  father's  house 
on  the  Monongahela,  and  traveled  under  the  presiding 
elder.  In  1794  lie  was  stationed  on  the  Alleghany 
Circuit,  which  he  traveled  two  years.  The  next  year, 
179G,  he  was  appointed  to  Pittsburgh  Circuit.  In  17(.»7 
he  was  stationed  in  New  York,  and  in  1798  in  Boston. 


HO  HISTORY    OF    THE 

From  thence,  in  1799,  he  was  removed  to  Provincetown, 
Mass.  In  1800  he  was  stationed  on  Nantucket.  George 
Cannon,  then  a  located  preacher,  had  preached  there  with 
considerable  success.  As  the  prospect  appeared  fiVler- 
ing,  he  solicited  the  aid  of  the  traveling  ministry,  and 
Beauchamp  was  sent  to  his  help.  He  had  not  been  in 
this  station  more  than  six  months  when  a  society  of 
between  seventy  and  eighty  members  was  raised  up, 
and,  before  he  left  it,  a  large  and  commodious  meeting- 
house was  built.8 

In  the  following  year,  1801,  he  located,  having  mar- 
ried. In  1807  he  removed  from  Nantucket,  and  settled 
near  his  father,  in  Wood  County,  (Va.,)  on  the  little 
Kanhawa.  He  continued  there,  preaching  with  great 
popularity  and  usefulness,  till  1815,  when  he  removed 
to  Chilicothe,  Ohio,  to  take  the  editorial  charge  of  the 
"  Western  Christian  Monitor,"  the  only  periodical  pub- 
lication at  that  time  in  the  Church.  He  had  previously 
published  his  "Essays  on  the  Truth  of  the  Christian 
Religion,"  a  work  of  decided  merit  in  the  estimation  of 
good  critics.  He  edited  the  Monitor  with  conspicuous 
ability,  and  preached  meanwhile  at  and  about  Chili- 
cothe with  eminent  success.  The  whole  community 
paid  him  the  homage  due  to  his  great  talents  and  ex 
alted  character,  and  a  remarkable  revival  of  religion, 
which  occurred  soon  after  his  removal,  is  attributed 
to  his  previous  instrumentality.  He  was  called  the 
"Demosthenes  of  the  West." 

In  1817  he  removed  to  Mount  Carmel,  111.,  where  he 
was  employed  in  founding  a  settlement.  He  showed 
himself  the  truly  great  man  in  all  the  details  of  this  new 
business,  planning  public  measures  and  economical  ar- 
rangements ;  devising  mechanical  improvements,  for 
s  Meth.  Mag.,  1825. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  31 

which  he  had  a  rare  genius;  directing  the  instructions 

of  the  youth,  and  simplifying  its  modes;  ministering  as 
pastor  to  the  congregation,  and  meanwhile  advancing 
in  his  own  personal  studio  and  improvement.  In  1822 
he  re-entered  the  itinerant  ministry  in  the  Missouri  Con- 
ference. He  labored  successfully  one  year  at  St.  Louis, 
and  in  1 823  was  appointed  presiding  elder  on  Indiana  Dis- 
trict, which  included  eleven  vast  circuits,  and  was  nearly 
coextensive  with  the  bounds  of  the  state.  He  was  sent, 
the  same  year,  a  delegate  to  the  General  Conference  at 
Baltimore,  and  such  was  the  impression  produced  by  his 
remarkable  character  and  talents  that  he  lacked  but  two 
votes  of  an  election  to  the  episcopal  office.  He  would 
undoubtedly  have  been  elected  were  it  not  for  the  ob- 
jection that  so  large  a  portion  of  his  life  had  been  spent 
Dut  of  the  itinerancy. 

On  his  return  to  his  district  he  was  seized  by  an  old 
complaint,  an  affection  of  the  liver,  and  after  suffering 
patiently  for  about  six  weeks,  fell  asleep  in  Christ  with 
full  hope  of  immortality.  His  biographer  says:  "He 
was  conscious  of  his  approaching  dissolution,  and  was 
fully  prepared  to  meet  it.  Eternity  appeared  to  be 
opened  to  his  view;  his  work  was  done,  and  he  was 
r»ady  to  go.  A  short  time  before  he  expired  he  prayed 
for  an  easy  passage  through  the  gates  of  death.  The 
Lord  heard  hi-  prayer;  and  he  died  so  easy,  that  he 
glided  into  eternity  almost  before  it  was  perceived  he 
was  gone.  Thus  expired  our  great  and  good  brother, 
William  Beauchamp,  in  Paoli,  Orange  County,  Indiana, 
on  the  seventh  day  of  October,  1824,  in  the  fifty  third 
year  of  hiF  age."9  The  same  writer  describes  his  man- 
ner of  preaching:  '-He  had  a  little  stoop  of  the  shoulders, 
but,  when  -peaking  in  public,  his  gestures  were  natural 
•Metb.  Mug.,  : 


32  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  easy.  His  voice  was  remarkably  soft  in  social  con- 
versation, but  in  argument  energetic.  In  bis  preaching, 
when  holding  out  the  promises  and  the  invitations  of  the 
gospel,  there  was  a  tenderness,  a  sweetness  in  his  voice, 
produced  frequently  by  gentle  breaks,  as  if  the  rising 
sympathies  of  his  soul  obstructed  in  some  degree  his 
utterance;  when  a  gentle  thrilling  sensation  appeared 
to  move  the  listening  multitude,  all  bending  forward  to 
catch  every  sentence  or  word  as  it  fell  from  his  lips. 
This  peculiarity  has  frequently  been  admired.  But 
when  he  became  argumentative,  and  discussed  doctrinal 
points,  or  when  false  doctrines  were  attacked,  the  tone 
of  his  voice  was  elevated,  his  whole  system  became 
nerved,  and  his  voice  assumed  a  deep  hollow  tone,  and 
then  soon  became  elevated  to  its  highest  key,  and  fell 
like  peals  of  thunder  on  the  ears  of  the  listening  assem- 
bly. On  one  occasion  the  force  of  his  powerful  elo- 
quence was  fully  demonstrated ;  it  was  on  a  subject  of 
controversy.  His  antagonist,  who  had  sat  and  listened 
for  some  length  of  time  to  arguments  too  powerful  for 
him  to  answer,  began  to  look  as  if  the  voice  which  he 
now  heard  came  from  another  world,  through  the 
shadow  of  a  man.  He  rose,  apparently  with  a  view  to 
leave  the  house;  but  being  so  overcome,  he  staggered, 
caught  by  the  railing,  reeled,  and  fell  to  his  seat,  and 
there  sat  overwhelmed  and  confounded,  until  the  dis- 
course was  concluded,  when  he  quietly  stepped  from  the 
house.  His  manner  of  preaching  was  plain.  He  seldom 
divided  his  subject  into  different  heads,  but  look  the 
natural  division  of  the  text.  His  sermons  were  deep, 
and  made  a  lasting  impression  upon  the  mind,  because 
they  were  both  practical  and  doctrinal.  Holiness  was 
his  theme.  There  was  seldom  a  shout  raised  in  the 
assembly  under  his  preaching,  but  always  strict  atten- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  33 

tion  was  paid  to  his  discourses;  every  eye  was  fixed 
upon  the  speaker,  and  frequently  the  people  were  all 
bathed  in  tears." 

Beauchainp  was  an  arduous  student.  His  early  con- 
veniences for  mental  culture  were  quite  limited ;  but 
besides  the  usual  variety  of  English  studies,  he  became 
a  master  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew.  While  yet 
residing  on  the  Monongahela,  where  the  schoolmaster 
had  never  yet  penetrated,  lie  was  so  smitten  with  the 
love  of  knowledge  that,  when  the  family  had  retired 
to  bed,  he  would  stretch  himself  on  the  floor  before 
the  hearth,  and,  with  torchlights  for  candles,  spend 
most  of  the  night  in  communion  with  his  favorite 
authors. 

His  style  of  preaching  is  said  to  have  been  severely 
chaste  and  dignified  ;  no  attempts  at  meretricious  orna- 
ment or  imaginative  effect,  no  boisterous  declamation  or 
far-fetched  novelties  of  thought  or  diction,  but  a  stem 
energy  of  intellect,  logical  conclusiveness,  a  solemn 
feeling,  gradually  rising  to  a  commanding  and  some- 
times overpowering  force,  were  the  characteristics  of 
this  truly  great  divine. 

Another  conspicuous  name  appears  in  the  list  of  the 
Xew  England  appointments  the  present  year,  that  of 
Daniel  Webb,  who  became  the  oldest  effective  Method- 
ist preacher  in  the  world.  He  was  born  in  Canterbury, 
Windham  County,  Conn.,  April,  IV 78.  The  Methodist 
itinerants  began  to  preach  in  that  town  about  1793  or 
1 794.  He  early  heard  Mudge,  Pickering,  Bostwick, 
and  Merritt.  They  preached  at  the  house  of  Captain 
Ephraim  Lyon,  in  the  southwest  part  of  Canterbury. 
Very  soon  a  class  was  formed,  and  the  place  was  made 
one  of  the  Sabbath  appointments  of  the  New  London 
Circuit.     "I  have  heard,"  he  writes,  "my  father  6ay 


34  HISTORY    OF    THE 

that  James  Coleman  was  his  spiritual  father,  having 
been  awakened  by  his  instrumentality,  though  con- 
verted under  the  labors  of  Enoch  Mudge.  I  well  re- 
member the  morning  when  he  addressed  his  family, 
telling  them  what  the  Lord  had  done  for  his  soul,  and 
expressing  his  conviction  of  the  duty  of  family  devotion 
which  he  then  commenced,  and  continued,  as  he  was 
able,  while  he  lived."  ]0 

Young  Webb  often  had  serious  reflections.  At 
length,  he  writes,  "  a  young  woman,  a  member  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  came  to  my  father's  house 
to  work  as  a  tailoress.  She  was  faithful  to  her  Lord,  and 
religion  was  the  theme  of  her  conversation.  Having  an 
opportunity  one  day,  she  said  to  me,  '  My  young  friend, 
what  do  you  think  of  religion  ? '  I  replied,  '  I  think  it 
to  be  a  good  and  a  necessary  thing  for  all  persons  before 
they  die.'  "  Then,'  said  she, '  what  objection  have  you  to 
seeking  it  now  ? '  '  If  I  could  have  my  young  compan- 
ions with  me  I  should  be  willing  to  seek  it  now,'  I  replied. 
She  then  said,  'My  dear  friend,  do  not  wait  for  your 
companions  ;  you  may  perhaps  be  in  your  grave  before 
they  will  turn  to  the  Lord.'  These  words  were  as  a 
nail  in  a  sure  place.  They  arrested  my  attention.  They 
took  hold  of  my  heart.  I  began  to  pray,  God  be  merci- 
ful to  me  a  sinner  !  I  saw  that  it  would  be  just  in  God 
to  cast  me  off  and  send  me  to  hell.  I  was  led  to  cry 
the  more  for  mercy ;  and  in  about  four  weeks  from  the 
time  of  her  faithfulness  to  me,  in  a  little  prayer-meet- 
ing, the  Lord  spoke  peace  to  my  soul ;  and  the  next 
day,  in  a  woods,  he  gave  me  a  sealing  evidence  of  my 
acceptance  with  him,  and  1  went  on  my  way  rejoicing. 
This  was  in  the  year  1797,  and  in  the  month  of  August.'"' 
The  primitive  Methodists  were  particular  in  such  dates, 
»°  Letter  to  the  author. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CH\   RCH.  35 

In  less  than  a  year  he  was  "exhorting"  on  the  circuit. 
Bostwick  tailed  him  out  to  Middletown  Circuit,  (Conn.,) 
and  there  he  preached  his  first  sermon.  In  1798,  re« 
ceived  by  the  Conference,  he  was  appointed  to  Gran- 
ville Circuit,  which  was  then  two  hundred  miles  in 
circumference,  including  the  towns  of  Granville,  Gran- 
by,  Snffield,  Westfield,  West  Springfield,  Southampton, 
Northampton,  Cummington,  Ashfield,  Buckland,  Worth- 
ington,  Dalton,  Partridgefield,  Washington,  Pittsfield, 
Lee,  Tyringham,  Sandisfield,  Blanford,  Chester,  and 
several  others.  "We  had,"  he  writes,  "to  cross  the 
Green  Mountains  twice  in  each  round.  I  frequently 
had  to  dismount  my  horse,  and  break  through  the  snow 
banks  to  get  him  along.  We  preached  almost  even 
•lay,  besides  visiting,  and  attending  prayer  and  class- 
meetings,  so  that  our  labors  were  very  considerable 
My  next  appointment,  1700,  by  the  direction  of  the 
presiding  elder,  George  Pickering,  was  Sandwich, 
Mass.,  instead  of  Martha's  Vineyard,  to  which  the 
Conference  sent  me.  This  was  a  two  weeks'  circuit. 
The  Sabbath  appointments  were  Sandwich  Town  and 
Monument.  The  societies  were  small,  and  the  encour- 
agement but  little,  the  germ  only  of  the  present  state 
of  things  there.  After  laboring  there  about  three 
months,  the  presiding  elder  directed  me  to  Hawke,  now 
Danville,  in  the  southeasterly  part  of  New  Hampshire, 
where  there  were  no  Methodist  Churches  formed;  but 
the  ground  had  been  partially  broken  up  by  George 
Pickering,  Ralph  Williston,  John  Nichols,  and  perhaps 
other-.  Epaphras  Kibby  was  also  Bent  into  that  country 
about  the  same  time,  but  he  labored  principally  in  Pop- 
lin and  East  Kingston.  He  occasionally  visited  me  and 
I  him.  We  tried  n.  encourage  and  assist  each  other  in 
our  hard  lab«»r-  and  privations.     We   had   been  there 


4 


36  HISTORY    OF    THE 

but  a  few  months  before  the  Lord  blessed  our  efforts, 
and  a  class  was  formed  first  in  Hawke  and  then  in  Pop- 
lin, and  at  a  later  period  in  East  Kingston. 

At  the  next  Conference,  which  was  in  Lynn,  June, 
1800,  he  was  ordained  a  deacon  by  Bishop  VVhatcoat, 
and  stationed  on  Norridgewock  Circuit,  in  the  district 
of  Maine.  That  circuit  included  the  towns  of  Starks, 
Norridgewock,  Canaan,  Fairfield,  Anson,  and  the  set- 
tlements then  called  Industry,  New  Portland,  Barnards- 
town,  Carryatuck  Falls,  etc.  He  also  visited  Vassal- 
borough,  and  preached  there  once  or  twice.  "  I  went," 
he  says,  "  very  reluctantly  to  the  circuit,  having  heard 
a  great  many  frightful  stories  about  the  country.  Set- 
ting aside  the  disgrace  of  it,  perhaps  T  should  have  felt 
but  little  worse  if  I  had  been  doomed  to  the  state 
prison  for  a  year.  But  we  do  not  always  know  what 
is  best  for  us.  It  proved  to  be  one  of  the  happiest 
and  most  prosperous  years  of  my  ministerial  life. 
There  was  a  good  revival  in  Norridgewock  and  in 
Industry.  I  left  the  circuit  with  reluctance,  *  sorrow- 
ing most  of  all '  that  probably  *  I  should  see  their  faces 
no  more.' " 

At  the  Conference  which  sat  in  Lynn,  1801,  he  was 
appointed  to  labor  in  Salisbury  and  parts  adjacent: 
also  in  1802,  in  the  same  regions.  In  1803  he  was  sta- 
tioned in  Marblehead,  and  in  1804  in  Hawke  and  vicin- 
ity. His  labors  extended  also  to  Salem,  in  New  Hamp- 
shire. At  the  next  Conference,  1805,  he  was  stationed 
in  Lynn,  Mass.,  and  preached  in  the  old  Lee  meeting- 
house, which  stood  at  the  east  end  of  the  Common. 
The  established  Church  of  the  village  had  not  yet  re- 
lented in  its  hostility,  and  menaces  of  a  prosecution  had 
been  uttered  against  his  predecessor,  Peter  Jayne,  for 
marrying  one  or  more  couples,  member    ^f  his  own 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  37 

congregation.  Asbury  took  measures,  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  Webb,  to  meet  this  embarrassing  difficulty  by- 
imitating  some  of  the  forms  of  a  "regular  settlement." 
"He  told  the  Church,"  says  Webb,  "that  he  had  ap- 
pointed me  to  be  their  pastor.  They  signified  their 
acceptance  of  me  as  such,  and  he  gave  me  a  charge 
and  token  of  fellowship."  Afterward  the  preachers 
stationed  in  Boston  and  Marblehead,  with  their  people, 
went  through  similar  ceremonies,  and  the  objections  to 
the  legality  of  marriage,  solemnized  by  Methodist  min- 
isters, ceased. 

He  continued  in  Lynn  two  years,  and  at  the  Confer- 
ence in  Boston,  1807,  was  appointed,  with  George 
Pickering,  to  that  city.  The  Conference  rose  on  Satur- 
day, and  he  returned  immediately  to  his  family  at  Lynn. 
Asbury  also  went  thither.  Early  the  next  morning  a 
committee,  consisting  of  three  of  the  chief  men  of  the 
Boston  Church,  arrived  to  remonstrate  with  the  bishop 
against  the  substitution  of  Webb  in  the  place  of  Merwin, 
who  had  been  in  the  city  the  preceding  year.  "  It  will 
not  do,"  replied  the  bishop;  "Merwin  will  die  if  he  stays 
there ;  he  must  go  to  Newport."  The  committee  returned 
in  no  very  agreeable  mood.  At  first  Webb  was  reluct- 
antly received;  "but,"  he  says,  "Pickering  and  I  went 
to  our  work  with  one  heart,  and  hand  in  hand.  He  was 
foremost  in  every  good  work,  and  I  endeavored  to  fol- 
low on.  We  were  cordially  received  after  a  few  weeks. 
The  Lord  blessed  our  labors,  and  many  souls  were 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth,  considerably 
over  one  hundred,  I  believe.  Our  brethren  in  the  min- 
i-try, Thomas  C.  Pierce,  and  Thomas  W.  Tucker,  were 
converted  this  year."  The  Church  was  in  debt  three 
or  four  hundred  dollars  for  the  expenses  of  the  last  year. 
The  debt  and  all  the  expenses  of  the  current  year  were 


38  HISTORY    OF    THE 

paid,  and,  as  a  society,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  year 
*hey  owed  nothing. 

He  remained  another  year  in  the  city,  with  Martin 
Ruter  as  colleague.  The  Church  prospered  greatly. 
The  evening  before  he  left  it  for  his  next  year's  appoint- 
ment the  members  pressed  into  his  house,  with  blessings 
on  their  tongues  and  in  their  hands.  Many  had  been 
converted  during  the  year,  among  whom  were  several 
who  became  preachers ;  fiscal  embarrassments  had  been 
thrown  off,  and  all  the  interests  of  the  society  were 
invigorated. 

His  subsequent  appointments  were  in  various  parts  of 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  and  he  lived,  beloved 
and  venerated  for  his  unblemished  character  and  long 
services,  down  to  1867,  when  he  died  in  the  full  assurance 
of  hope.  He  was  noted  for  the  brevity,  perspicuity, 
systematic  arrangement,  and  evangelical  richness  of  his 
discourses,  his  unpretending  but  cordial  manners,'  and 
his  steadfast  interest  for  his  Church. 

Epaphras  Kibby  survived  down  to  our  day,  one  of 
the  patriarchs  of  the  New  England  itinerants.  He  was 
converted  under  the  ministry  of  George  Roberts.  "  One 
sermon,"  he  writes,11  "from  this  powerful,  eloquent  mau 
was  all-sufficient,  under  the  Divine  Spirit,  to  rouse  my 
guilty  soul,  and  to  extort  the  cry,  '  What  shall  I  do  to 
be  saved?'"  It  is  a  little  remarkable  that  the  sermon 
which  produced  this  effect  was  on  a  controversial  occa- 
sion. An  heretical  clergyman  visited  the  town ;  Robert  s 
heard  him  in  the  Court-house,  and  perceiving  the  dan- 
gerous plausibility  of  his  discourse,  announced  a  rejoinder 
in  the  evening  at  the  same  place ;  a  crowd  assembled  to 
witness  the  rencontre.  Roberts  was  a  man  of  great 
earnestness  and  power;  he  not  only  confounded  the  logio 
11  Letter  to  the  author. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  39 

of  his  antagonist,  utterly  baffling  him  before  the  as- 
sembly, but  dealt  home  Bnch  resistless  admonitions  to 

the  latter,  that  Borne  thirteen  or  fourteen  young  men 
were  awakened  on  the  spot.  "I  felt,"  says  Kibby,  "  as 
I  never  did  before.  I  prayed,  I  tried  to  weep,  but 
T  conld  not.  I  tried  to  repent,  but  my  heart  was  as 
hard  a<  Btone.  And  thus,  for  three  weeks,  I  went  with 
my  head  bowed  down  like  a  bulrush,  attending  all  the 
meetings,  sometimes  spending  the  whole  night  on  my 
knees  in  prayer,  carrying  about  a  body  of  sin  and  death, 
until  I  once  rose  up  in  the  meeting  to  tell  the  sym- 
pathizing Christians  that  in  my  ease  there  was  no  hope. 
But  before  my  lips  pronounced  the  words  the  power  of 
God  fell  upon  me.  I  sunk  into  my  chair.  Kays  of 
light,  heavenly  and  divine,  fell  upon  my  dark  under- 
standing. The  love  of  God  filled  my  whole  soul;  the 
Holy  Ghost  descended  upon  the  people,  and  the  shout  of 
a  king  was  among  us.  0  what  a  day  !  a  day  never  to 
be  forgotten.  My  captivity  was  turned  and  Israel  was 
glad." 

This  was  in  1V93,  and  in  the  sixteenth  year  of  his  age. 
In  1798  he  was  pressed  into  the  itinerant  service  at  the 
Granville  Conference,  though  he  had  never  attempted 
t<>  preach  a  sermon,  but  had  only  "exhorted."  "Go, 
my  »  ."  -  id  Asbury  to  him,  "and  God  be  with  you. 
Do  the  best  you  can  ;  an  angel  cannot  do  better."  His 
first  appointment  was  on  Sandwich  Circuit.  Ma--.,  and 
thus  began  one  <>f  the  longest  ministerial  careers  in  our 
annals,  though  it  was  interrupted  at  intervals  by  broken 
health  and  a  u supernumerary  relation n  to  the  Confer- 
ence, and  concluded  by  a  protracted  u superannuation.91 
lie  traveled  in  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  New  Hamp- 
shire, and  Maine.  lb-  formed  the  firsl  Methodist  society 
,n  N  Lford,  .Ma—.,  and  also  in  Hallo  well,  Me.,  and 


40  HISTORY    OF    THIii 

occupied,  with  distinction,  the  stations  of  Boston,  Port- 
land, and  New  Bedford.  He  suffered  the  early  hard- 
ships of  the  Maine  circuits  courageously,  and  helped 
effectually  to  lay  the  foundations  of  Methodism  through 
much  of  that  country  at  the  beginning  of  the  century. 
When  appointed  there  in  1800,  it  seemed  a  distant 
and  appalling  field  to  him ;  but  he  was  accompanied  and 
cheered  on  the  way  by  a  convoy  of  brave  spirited  itiner- 
ants, Merritt,  Heath,  Webb,  and  others,  all  bound  to 
eastern  circuits.  When  he  arrived  he  found  a  vast  sphere 
of  labor  before  him.  Readfield  Circuit  then  included 
Monmouth,  Winthrop,  Readfield,  Kent's  Hill,  Montville, 
Vienna,  New  Sharon,  Farmington,  Strong,  Bethel,  the 
extreme  settlement  on  Sandy  River,  New  Vineyard, 
Wilton,  Jay,  Livermore,  Fayette,  Wayne,  Leeds,  and 
Green, besides  many  smaller  appointments.  He  preachec* 
and  traveled  every  day,  except  one  Saturday  in  eacl 
month.  The  roads  were  new,  and  at  times  dangerous 
to  man  and  beast.  In  one  section  of  the  circuit  he  had 
to  pass  through  a  forest  six  miles  in  extent,  at  first  with 
a  guide,  and  subsequently  by  marks  upon  the  trees. 
Frequently  he  was  obliged  to  cross  frozen  streams  when 
the  ice  would  not  bear  his  horse ;  but  while  he  himself 
walked  upon  it,  the  latter,  led  by  his  hand,  had  to  break 
a  way,  cutting  himself  with  ice,  and  coming  forth  ex- 
hausted and  bloody  from  the  struggle.  In  other  seasons 
these  streams  had  to  be  forded  or  swum,  often  at  the 
risk  of  life.  In  those  remote  regions  he  usually  slept  in 
iog-cabins,  through  the  roofs  of  which  the  stars  shone 
upon  his  slumbers  and  the  snow  fell  upon  his  bed,  form- 
ing a  cover  by  morning  several  inches  thick.12  Again 
his  spirit  sunk  within  him.  Such  exposures  and  labors 
seemed  impracticable ;  he  felt  that  he  must  retreat. 
12  Letter  to  the  author. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  41 

but  God  interposed  for  him.  When  about  to  give 
up  in  despair,  a  marvelous  revival  broke  out  in  the  cir- 
cuit ;  he  took  fresh  courage  and  went  on  his  way 
rejoicing. 

This  event  was  of  too  remarkable  a  character  to  be 
omitted  here.  While  doubting  and  praying,  respect- 
ing his  duty  to  remain  any  longer,  a  young  gentleman 
of  Monmouth,  of  high  position  in  society,  heard  him 
accidentally  at  a  neighboring  village,  and  on  return- 
ing home  reported  among  his  neighbors  an  exalted 
opinion  of  the  young  preacher's  talents  and  character, 
and  particularly  urged  his  own  wife  to  go  and  hear  him 
when  he  should  arrive  in  their  town.  He  himself  made 
no  pretensions  to  piety  ;  his  lady  had  been  deeply  serious 
some  time  before,  but  had  apparently  lost  her  religious 
convictions.  Kibby  went  to  Monmouth  to  preach  in  the 
Congregational  Church.  As  he  sat  in  the  desk  waiting, 
a  divine  afflatus  seemed  to  descend  on  him  and  the 
gathering  people.  lie  has  been  heard  to  say  that  he 
never  before  nor  since  witnessed  a  more  direct  and 
remarkable  agency  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  A  well- 
dressed  lady  arrived,  and  took  a  seat,  tremblingly,  near 
the  door,  but  where  the  whole  assembly  saw  her. 
Without  an  audible  expression  her  countenance  and 
demeanor  exhibited  unutterable  feeling,  and  the  whole 
aidienee  soon  seemed  to  share  it.  The  preacher  pro- 
ceeded with  his  discourse  with  unusual  interest  and 
solemnity.  As  he  advanced,  exhibiting  the  mercy  of 
God,  the  feeling  of  awe  which  had  hitherto  absorbed 
the  assembly  seemed  to  change,  a  glad  and  grateful 
emotion  sped  through  the  mass,  a  bright  and  glow- 
ing expression  shone  on  their  faces;  and  the  lady, 
with  streaming  tears  and  overflowing  heart,  found 
peace  with  God,  and  seemed  transfigured  before  them. 


42  HISTORY    OF    THE 

When  they  rose  to  sing,  she  fell  insensible  under  her 
intense  feelings;  her  husband,  near  her,  was  smitten 
down,  and  dropped  upon  his  seat ;  the  presence  of  God 
oeemed  to  overshadow  the  place,  and  the  assembly  was 
overwhelmed.  The  lady  herself  became  a  devoted  mem 
ber  of  the  Church  ;  her  husband,  General  M'Clellan,  was 
the  man  who  invited  Kibby.  He  subsequently  was  con- 
verted, and  their  family  was  long  known  on  the  Ken- 
nebec for  its  affluent  and  Christian  hospitality,  and  its 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  Methodism.  It  afterward 
became  the  germ  of  the  Methodist  Church  in  Bath. 
The  influence  of  this  remarkable  meeting  spread  like  a 
flame  through  the  town  and  neighboring  villages,  and, 
indeed,  more  or  less  over  the  circuit.  The  sinking  heart 
of  the  preacher  was  fortified  forever. 

These  scenes  at  Monmouth  led  to  the  introduction 
of  Methodism  into  Hallowell.  A  young  man  at  the 
former,  but  belonging  to  the  latter,  entreated  Kibby  to 
visit  the  town  and  preach  to  its  inhabitants.  He  con- 
sented, passed  into  the  village,  procured  a  school-house, 
and  had  a  large  congregation ;  but  at  the  end  of  the 
service  his  hearers  all  retired,  leaving  him  alone  without 
an  invitation  to  any  of  their  homes,  or  an  intimation  of 
their  approval  or  disapproval  of  his  doctrines.  He  felt 
disappointed,  mortified,  and  mounting  his  horse  rode 
four  miles  to  Augusta  for  a  supper,  believing  that  he  had 
erred  in  going  to  Hallowell.  On  arriving  at  Augusta 
some  gentlemen  of  high  respectability,  who  admired  his 
talents,  appointed  a  meeting  for  him  in  a  hall.  When 
he  entered  it  he  found  an  apparently  selected  audience. 
After  the  sermon  one  of  the  hearers  rose  and  said, 
"  I  approve  these  doctrines  and  esteem  this  man ;"  and 
throwing  a  dollar  on  the  table  he  added,  "you,  gen- 
tlemen, may  do  likewise."     A  shower  of  silver  dollars 


MKTIIODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  43 

wime  down  upon  the  table ;  the  preacher  refused  them, 
but  he  was  urged  and.  compelled  to  receive  them.  It 
was  no  superfluous  bounty,  but  a  most  opportune  provi- 
dence, meeting  necessities  which  could  hardly  have 
otherwise  been  sustained.  But  a  more  cheering  incident 
followed.  Before  he  left  the  hall  he  was  compensated, 
somewhat,  for  his  mortifying  treatment  at  Hallowell. 
A  man,  trembling  with  emotion,  took  him  by  the  hand 
and  inquired,  "  When,  sir,  are  you  coming  again  to  Hal- 
lowell?" "  Xever,  sir,"  replied  the  preacher.  "Do,  do 
come  once  more,"  rejoined  the  stranger,  with  tears,  "for 
your  discourse  there,  to-day,  has  awakened  my  guilty 
soul."     Unexpected  results  of  one  day  ! 

Kibby  saw  the  hand  of  God  in  these  things.  He  sent 
back  by  the  stranger  an  appointment  at  Hallowell  for 
four  weeks  afterward,  the  time  of  his  next  return  to 
that  part  of  the  circuit.  When  he  arrived  he  found 
that  the  awakened  man  had  been  converted.  The  house 
was  crowded,  and  he  was  embarrassed  with  invitations 
to  hospitable  homes ;  he  tarried  the  next  day,  and  spent 
it  in  visiting  from  house  to  house,  and  nearly  every 
family  he  called  upon  he  found  under  the  awakening  in- 
fluence of  the  Divine  Spirit.  A  revival  broke  out  which 
spread  through  the  whole  population,  and  the  first 
Methodist  society  of  Hallowell  was  formed.  The  two 
first  persons,  a  man  and  his  wife,  converted  in  this  ex- 
traordinary reformation,  presented  their  two  sons  to 
him  for  baptism.  They  were  twins,  and  scarcely  dis- 
tinguishable. He  offered  them  specially  to  God  in 
prayer,  by  that  holy  rite.  One  of  them  now  sleeps 
in  his  grave  in  Africa,  the  first  foreign  missionary  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  other  became  a 
preacher  of  Methodism  in  New  England. 

In  1-41  he  was  reported  among  the  "superannuated" 
D— 4  * 


4 J:  HISTORY    OF    THE 

in  the  New  England  Conference,  and  remained  on  that 
honored  roll  till  his  death  in  1865,  when  he  departed, 
exclaiming,  "  Glory  to  God !  glory  to  God  ! "  after  a 
ministry  of  sixty-seven  years.13  He  was  tall,  erect, 
and  slight  in  person,  extremely  neat  in  dress,  and  ven- 
erable in  appearance.  His  talents  were  of  st  very  su 
perior  order.  His  imagination  furnished  him  with  vivid 
illustrations,  always  abundant,  chaste,  and  appropriate ; 
his  reasoning  was  strikingly  perspicuous,  direct,  and 
conclusive ;  his  language  remarkable  for  both  elegance 
and  force.  Though  he  never  used  notes  in  the  pulpit, 
yet  a  large  portion  of  his  sermons  were  fully  written, 
the  cause,  probably,  of  that  rich  and  correct  diction 
which  so  eminently  characterized  even  his  impromptu 
addresses.  He  was  a  fond  lover  of  good  literature,  and 
abounded  in  general  knowledge.  His  judgment  was 
always  cautious  and  safe,  his  zeal  steady  and  effective, 
his  attachment  to  the  doctrines  and  economy  of  Meth- 
odism unwavering  amid  many  calls  and  temptations  to 
more  comfortable  stations  in  other  communions.  With- 
out ambition  or  pretension,  he  attained  to  a  rare  popu- 
larity as  a  preacher  in  the  days  of  his  vigor.  He 
accomplished  distinguished  service  in  the  Church,  and 
is  endeared  to  it,  in  most  of  New  England,  by  precious 
recollections. 

Joshua  Soule,  though  not  named  in  the  Minutes  till 
the  next  year,  began  to  travel  about  this  time,  under 
the  presiding  elder  of  Maine  District.  He  occupies  a 
distinguished  position  in  our  denominational  history. 
He  was  born  in  Bristol,  Hancock  County,  Me.,  August 
1,  1781.  About  1795  his  family  removed  to  Avon, 
then  a  recent  settlement  on  Sandy  River;  the  Read- 
field  Circuit  extended  to  this  remote  frontier,  and 
13  Minutes,  1865. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURtH,  45 

Enoch  Mitdge  and  other  traveling  evangelists  occa- 
sionally penetrated  to  it,  sounding  the  word  of  life 
among  its  sparse  habitations.  "The  settlement,"  says 
Mu«lge,M  u  was  new,  and  his  father's  house  unfinished. 
Joshua  had  a  precocious  mind,  a  strong  memory,  a  manly 
and  dignified  turn,  although  hi-  appearance  was  exceed- 
ingly rustic."  Youthful  and  untutored  as  he  was,  the 
dLCtrines  of  the  gospel,  as  exhibited  by  the  preachers  of 
Methodism,  arrested  his  attention,  and  commended  them- 
selvestohis  opening  intellect.  In  June,  1797,  after  seeking 
reconciliation  with  God  through  Jesus  Christ,  with  a  bro- 
ken and  contrite  heart,  he  found  peace  in  believing.  The 
chivalrie  zeal  and  energy  of  the  Methodist  itinerants 
who  had  brought  the  word  of  life  to  his  distant  home, 
found  a  responsive  sympathy  in  his  youthful  heart, 
and  was  congenial  with  those  habits  of  adventure  and 
exertion  to  which  his  lite  on  the  frontier  had  habit- 
uated him.  He  longed  to  share  their  heroic  labors, 
and  to  go  forth  "into  all  the  world"  proclaiming  the 
il  sound  of  the  gospel.  The  Divine  Spirit  selected 
and  anointed  him  for  signal  achievements  in  the  Church. 
Joshua  Taylor,  who  was  presiding  elder  in  Maine  about 
this  time,  perceived  beneath  the  rudeness  and  rusticity 
of  his  appearance  those  elements  of  promise  which  have 
>ince  distinguished  his  career,  and  encouraged  him  im- 
mediately to  enter  upon  his  ministerial  labors.  He  was 
then  (1798)  but  about  seventeen  year-  of  age.  An 
academy  would  doubtless  have  better  befitted  him,  and 
would  have  guaranteed  a  full  repayment,  in  increased 
usefulness,  for  the  delay  required  by  a  few  years  of 
study;  but  there  was  absolutely  none  within  his  reach, 
and  indefatigable  habits  of  application  and  observation 
were  at   least   a  partial   substitute.      lie  accompanied 

14  Letter  to  the  writer. 


46  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Taylor  around  the  district,  exhorting  after  his  sermons, 
exciting  general  interest  by  his  youth  and  devotion, 
and  not  a  little  by  the  contrast  which  he  presented  of 
rustic  awkwardness  with  extraordinary  though  unpol- 
ished talents. 

He  was  received  at  the  next  Conference,  and  ap- 
pointed, with  Timothy  Merritt,  to  Portland  Circuit. 
Merritt,  still  young  and  vigorous,  was  a  congenial  mind, 
thirsting  alike  for  knowledge  and  holiness,  and  their 
reciprocal  influence  could  not  but  be  mutually  profita- 
ble, so  far  as  their  continual  travels  and  labors  would 
admit.  After  staying  one  year  more  in  Maine,  during 
which  he  traveled  a  circuit  on  Union  River,  he  passed 
to  Massachusetts,  and  was  appointed  in  1801,  1802,  and 
1803,  respectively,  to  Sandwich,  Needham,  and  Nan- 
tucket. In  1804  he  returned  to  his  native  state,  and 
traveled  two  years  as  presiding  elder  of  the  district  ol 
Maine.  This  was  the  only  district  in  the  province  at 
that  period  ;  he  had,  therefore,  the  oversight  of  the 
entire  Methodist  interest  of  that  large  section  of  Now 
England.  Thirteen  circuits  were  under  his  superintend- 
ence. His  sermons  at  this  time  are  reported  to  have 
been  distinguished  by  that  breadth  of  view  and  majesty 
of  style  which,  in  later  years,  notwithstanding  some 
abatement  through  the  variety  of  his  responsibilities, 
have  continued  to  mark  with  greatness  his  pulpit  efforts. 
His  word  was  oftentimes  in  irresistible  power,  bearing 
down  upon  the  large  assemblies  which  collected  to  hear 
him,  like  the  storm  on  the  bending  forest.  He  shared 
fully,  during  his  presiding  eldership  in  Maine,  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  early  itinerancy:  long  journeys  on  horseback, 
over  new  roads,  through  vast  forests,  in  the  storms  of  win- 
ter ;  fording  danger  ous  streams,  lodging  in  exposed  log- 
cabins,  preaching  al  nost  daily,  and  receiving  a  pecuniary 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  47 

compensation  scarcely  sufficient  for  traveling  expenses 
and  clothing.  These  were  the  tests,  however,  which 
made  strong  men  of  the  Methodist  preachers  of  that 
clay. 

Such  was  the  prosperity  and  extension  of  the  district 
during  these  two  years,  that  in  1806  it  was  divided, 
and  its  eastern  portion  formed  into  a  new  one,  named 
after  the  Kennebec  River,  along  which  it  chiefly  ex- 
tended. Soule  took  charge  of  the  latter  during  1806 
and  1807.  The  following  four  years  he  traveled  again 
the  other  section,  then  called  Portland  District.  During 
this  period  Martin  Rnter,  Epaphras  Kibby,  Ebenezer 
Blake,  Charles  Virgin,  Daniel  Fillmore,  Samuel  Hill- 
man,  and  others  of  familiar  name  in  the  New  England 
Churches,  were  under  his  guidance.  They  had  hard 
struggles  but  glorious  victories  in  spreading  the  truth 
through  the  wilds  of  Maine.  In  1812  Soule  returned  to 
Massachusetts,  and  was  the  colleague  of  Daniel  Webb 
at  Lynn ;  but  in  the  following  year  was  back  again, 
traveling  his  former  district  on  the  Kennebec.  He  con- 
tinued there  till  lslG,  when  he  was  appointed  Book 
A^ent  at  Xew  York.  He  did  good  service  for  the 
Church  in  this  capacity  during  four  years,  especially  by 
the  publication  of  the  Methodist  Magazine,  the  appear- 
ance of  which,  "even  at  this  late  period,"  says  the 
historian  of  the  Church,  "  was  hailed  by  the  friends  of 
literature  and  religion  as  the  harbinger  of  brighter  days 
to  our  Zion."  Soule  was  it-  editor;  his  original  articles 
were  sensible  in  thought  and  dignified  in  style,  though 
betraying  often  those  minute  intellectual  defects  which 
seli-educati<>n,  however  advantageous  in  other  resp 
seldom  eradicates.  Its  selections  were  peculiarly  at- 
tractive and  instructive,  and  such  was  it-  success,  that 
ten  thousand  subscribers  were  obtained  the  first  year. 


48  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Bangs  took  SoiuVs  place  at  the  Book  Rooms  in  1820, 
and  the  latter  was  stationed  in  New  York  city,  where 
he  labored  two  years  with  Hunt,  Hibbard,  Spicer,  and 
Summerfield.  The  following  two  years  he  spent  in 
Baltimore,  and  in  1824  was  elected  to  the  episcopacy  in 
the  forty-third  year  of  his  age,  and  the  twenty-sixth  oi 
his  ministry.  For  forty-three  years  he  has  sustained 
the  onerous  responsibilities  of  that  office,  traversing  the 
continent,  from  the  Penobscot  in  Maine,  to  the  Colorado 
in  Texas,  presiding  in  Conferences,  visiting  in  long  and 
perilous  journeys  the  Indian  Missions,  and  energetically 
laboring,  by  the  many  facilities  of  his  position,  for  the 
promotion  of  the  Church. 

In  the  discussions  of  the  General  Conference  of  1844, 
which  resulted  in  the  division  of  the  Church,  he  attached 
himself  to  the  party  formed  by  the  representatives  of 
the  South,  and  has  since  identified  himself  with  .that 
section  of  the  denomination. 

Bishop  Soule  was  erect,  tall,  and  slight  in  person,  and 
dignified  in  his  bearing;  his  forehead  high,  but  narrow, 
his  voice  strong  and  commanding.  In  the  pulpit  he 
was  slow,  long  in  his  sermons— usually  occupying  an 
hour  and  a  half  for  each;  elaborate,  almost  entiiely 
destitute  of  imagination  or  figurative  illustrations,  but 
strongly  fortified  in  the  main  positions  of  his  subject, 
and  vigorous  in  his  style.  His  discourses  showed  more 
breadth  than  depth,  but  were  often  overwhelmingly 
impressive.  The  dignity  of  his  bearing,  frequently 
verging  on  majesty  itself,  gave  to  his  sermons,  at  times, 
an  imposing  solemnity ;  but  on  occasions  less  congruous 
with  it,  had  the  disadvantage  of  appearing,  to  the  fas- 
tidious at  least,  pompous  and  repulsive. 

He  did  great  services  and  endured  great  privations 
for  Methodism.      Northern  Methodists,  however  they 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUKLH.  4!) 

may  regret  his  later  measures,  will  ever  recall  him  with 
gratitude  and  respect  as  one  of  their  veteran  pioneers, 
and  a  noble  son  of  their  soil.  He  died,  near  Nashville. 
Temi.,  March  G,  1867,  in  the  full  assurance  of  faith. 

The  year  had  been  prosperous,  though  not  so  gener- 
ally as  the  preceding  one.  The  new  circuit  of  Vergen- 
nes,  in  Vermont,  which  was  projected  at  the  Granville 
Conference,  had  been  the  scene  of  a  great  reformation. 
It  comprehended  all  the  State  of  Vermont,  between 
the  Green  Mountains  and  Lake  Champlain,  and  re- 
quired incredible  travels  and  labors.  It  was  a  field 
for  an  evangelical  Hercules,  and  such  was  Joseph  Mitch- 
ell, its  itinerant.  His  ministrations  were  in  power, 
his  zeal  never  flagged ;  preaching  night  and  day,  trav- 
eling at  the  rate  of  nearly  six  thousand  miles  a  year, 
and  suffering  extreme  privations,  to  which  were  super- 
added not  a  few  instances  of  violent  persecution,  he 
overcame  all  obstacles,  and  "the  word  ran  and  was 
glorified  "  through  that  extensive  region.  Hundreds 
of  souls  were  converted,  many  of  whom  entered  other 
Churches ;  but  at  least  eighty-eight  were  received  into 
classes,  some  of  which  he  now  formed  for  the  first  time. 
The  other  circuit  in  Vermont,  (Vershire,)  which  included 
all  the  state  east  of  the  mountains,  had  shared  this  pros- 
perity. Under  the  labors  of  Joseph  Crawford  sixty-five 
had  been  received  into  the  societies,  besides  vast  num- 
bers who  were  awakened,  but  had  not  yet  joined  the 
new  communion.  Three  new  circuits  had  been  formed 
in  this  single  state,  namely,  Essex,  Windsor,  and  Whit- 
iugham.  The  former  returned  one  hundred  and  ten 
members,  the  latter  fifty-five.  Methodism  had  scattered 
yerms  extensively  through  Vermont,  and  small  classes, 
the  nuclei  of  subsequent  Churches,  had  been  formed  iu 
all  directions. 


50  HIST0R7     OF    THE 

Joseph  Snelling  had  labored  successfully  on  Martha's 
Vineyard.  The  number  of  Methodists  on  that  island, 
though  still  small,  was  nearly  doubled  since  the  Gran- 
ville Conference.  He  had  also  visited  Nantucket  during 
the  year,  and  witnessed  the  conversion  of  many  souls. 
Great  results  had  been  reaped  on  Pittsfield  Circuit. 
The  eccentric  but  sincere  Lorenzo  Dow,  who  had  been 
admitted  to  the  ministry  at  Granville  Conference,  and 
appointed  to  Cambridge  Circuit,  N.  T.,  was  transferred 
during  the  year  to  Pittsfield.  Notwithstanding  his  sin- 
gularities, he  was  remarkably  successful.  In  many 
places  he  was  repulsed  by  the  societies,  and  denied  the 
hospitalities  of  the  families  which  usually  entertained 
the  circuit  preachers;  but  his  unwearied  labors  pro- 
duced in  time  a  profound  impression.  He  sometimes 
rode  more  than  fifty  miles,  and  preached  five  sermons, 
besides  leading  several  classes,  in  a  single  day.  The 
astonished  people,  witnessing  his  earnestness  and  useful- 
ness, soon  treated  him  more  respectfully,  and  a  general 
revival  ensued.  In  Pittsfield,  where  at  first  he  received 
no  invitation  to  their  homes,  he  says,  "  I  visited  it  ex- 
tensively, and  had  the  satisfaction  to  see  the  Methodists 
and  others  stirred  up  to  serve  God.  Now  they  offered 
me  presents,  which  I  refused,  saying,  The  next  preachers 
invite  home  and  treat  well,  for  my  sake.  In  Alford," 
he  says,  in  his  characteristic  style,  "  I  preached  Method- 
ism, inside  and  outside.  The  brethren  here  treated  me 
very  coldly  at  first,  so  I  was  necessitated  to  pay  for  my 
horse-keeping  for  five  weeks,  and,  being  confined  a  few 
days  with  the  ague  and  fever,  the  man  of  the  house  not 
being  a  Methodist,  I  paid  him  for  my  accommodation. 
I  had  said  in  public  that  God  would  bless  my  labors 
there,  which  made  the  people  watch  me  for  evil,  and 
not  for  good.     I  visited  the  whole  neighborhood  from 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  51 

Louse  to  bouse,  which  made  a  great  uproar  among  the 
people.  However,  the  fire  kindled;  the  society  got  en- 
livened, and  several  others  who  were  stumbling  at  the 
unexemplary  walk  of  professors,  were  convinced  and 
brought  to  find  the  realities  of  religion  for  themselves. 
When  leaving  this  place  I  was  offered  pay  for  my 
expenses ;  but  I  refused  it,  saying,  If  you  wish  to  do  me 
good,  treat  the  coming  preachers  better  than  you  have 
treated  me.  Xow  the  eyes  of  many  were  enlightened  to 
see  a  free  salvation  offered  to  all  mankind.  In  Lennox 
the  society  and  people  were  much  prejudiced  at  first, 
but  the  former  were  quickened  afresh." 

This  eccentric  man  left  the  circuit  in  a  state  of  uni- 
versal prosperity  ;  one  hundred  and  eighty  had  been 
added  to  the  societies,  and  about  five  hundred  more 
u  were  under  conviction  for  sin."  The  sensation  was 
wonderful,  and  some,  to  our  day,  stood  up  in  the 
Church  as  witnesses  of  his  usefulness.  "  AVe  have  this 
treasure  in  earthen  vessels,  that  the  excellency  of  the 
power  may  be  of  God,  and  not  of  man." 

Extensive  reformations  had  prevailed  in  Maine.  The 
aggregate  of  members  in  all  the  Xew  England  states 
was  four  thousand  nine  hundred  and  fifty-four,  and  the 
increase  of  the  year  was  about  eight  hundred,  more 
than  two  thirds  of  the  increase  of  the  entire  denom- 
ination. The  gains  were  chiefly  in  Maine,  Vermont, 
and  Massachusetts.  Rhode  Island  still  lingered  tardily 
in  the  rear.  It  returned  but  one  hundred  and  ninety-six 
members,  a  gain  of  only  thirty-four  during  the  year,  a 
declension  of  twelve  from  the  number  reported  four 
years  before.  About  seven  years  had  passed  since  the 
first  regular  appointment  was  made  in  that  state,  and 
but  three  sinee  Nicholas  Snethen  traveled  the  first  cir- 
cuit in  Vermont,  yet  the  former  scarcely  reports  two 


52  HISTORY    OF    THE 

hundred  members,  while  the  latter  returns  six  hundred 
and  four.  New  Hampshire,  though  now  overspread 
with  Methodists,  also  gave  a  reluctant  admission  to  its 
hardy  itinerants.  But  one  circuit  had  yet  been  formed 
in  the  state.  Three  years  had  passed  since  Philip 
Wager  entered  it  as  the  first  Methodist  preacher  regu- 
larly sent  thither.  Elijah  Bachelor  reported  the  present 
year  but  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  Methodists  within 
its  limits,  a  gain  of  but  nine  since  the  last  returns,  and 
of  but  sixty-three  in  three  years.  Methodism  had  to 
struggle  into  that  state.  Long  rides,  bad  roads,  hard 
fare,  exposure  to  the  weather  by  night  in  log-cabins,  to 
perils  by  day  in  fording  creeks  and  rivers,  were  not  the 
only  trials  to  which  the  laborious  preachers  were  sub- 
jected. They  were  generally  assailed  by  other  sects, 
and  sometimes  by  the  mob. 

Similar  scenes  were  not  uncommon  in  Vermont  as  well 
as  New  Hampshire.  The  hardy  settlers  of  these  wilder- 
ness regions  chose  a  more  summary,  but  less  vexatious 
method  of  suppressing  the  new  sect  than  their  more 
staid  and  more  obstinate  neighbors  of  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts.  The  latter  imprisoned,  seized  property, 
anathematized  from  the  piflpit,  and  did  so  with  most 
patient  pertinacity  for  years,  while  the  former  shook  their 
fists  and  swore  terribly  against  the  intruders  on  one 
day,  and  on  the  next  were  weeping  and  falling  as  dead 
men  under  their  preaching.  New  Hampshire  has  since 
become  a  fruitful  field  of  Methodism. 

There  was  no  Conference  in  New  England  in  179:); 
jhe  New  York  Conference  made  the  appointments  for 
the  Eastern  States.  Elijah  Hedding,  though  his  name 
does  not  appear  in  the  Minutes  till  a  later  date,  com- 
menced traveling  this  year  by  the  direction  of  the  pre- 
siding elder.     He  was  born  in  Dutchess  County,  N.  Y., 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  53 

June  7,  1780,  but  removed  with  his  parents,  at  about 
iiis  tenth  year,  to  Starksborough,  Vt.  The  Methodist 
itinerants  had  not  yet  penetrated  thither;  but  an  aged 
Methodist  and  his  wife,  a  "mother  in  Israel,"  had 
removed  to  that  town  from  Connecticut,  and,  though 
remote  from  any  members  of  their  chosen  communion, 
and  several  miles  from  any  church  whatever,  they  let 
their  light  so  shine  that  their  neighbors  saw  their 
good  works,  and  glorified  their  Father  which  is  in 
heaven.  The  Church  is  indebted  for  the  services  of  this 
distinguished  man  to  the  instrumentality  of  that  elect 
lady.  Meetings  were  opened  in  her  humble  dwelling 
two  or  three  years  before  the  arrival  of  the  itinerants. 
There  was  no  one  in  the  neighborhood,  at  first,  capable 
of  praying  in  public,  except  herself  and  her  husband,  who 
was  a  devoted  Christian  of  moderate  abilities.  They 
induced  young  Hedding,  then  about  sixteen  years  old, 
to  assist  them  in  their  Sabbath  services.  Though  un- 
interested in  religion,  he  consented  to  read  a  sermon 
every  Sunday  to  the  assembled  neighbors,  the  good  man 
of  the  house  beginning  and  concluding  the  exercises 
with  singing  and  prayer.  The  latter  was  abundantly 
furnished  with  Wesley's  works  and  other  Methodist 
publications ;  by  his  public  Sabbath  readings,  Hedding 
became  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  doctrines  of 
Methodism,  and  was  so  struck  with  their  evangelical 
richness  and  practical  appropriateness,  that  lie  boob 
read  all  the  books  in  the  cottage  of  the  pious  couple. 
lie  has  been  heard  to  Bay  that  this  was  the  best  theo- 
logical training  he  ever  enjoyed.  His  first  permanent 
religious  impressions  were  produced  by  the  conversa- 
tions of  the  Christian  matron.  She  perceived  his  prom- 
ising talents,  and  strong  moral  susceptibility.  Hoping 
that    he   might   be    providentially   called   to  important, 


54  HISTORY    OF    THE 

services  in  the  Church,  she  conversed  with  him  fre- 
quently on  subjects  of  religion,  and  succeeded  at  last  in 
awakening  in  his  mind  a  deep  concern  for  his  spiritual 
safety.  About  this  time  the  old  Vergennes  Circuit  was 
formed,and  took  in  the  town  of  Starksborough ;  Joseph 
Mitchell,  a  man  mighty  in  word  and  in  doctrine,  oppor- 
tunely visited  the  place.  Hedding  heard  him  preach, 
his  convictions  were  deepened,  and  as  he  returned  to  his 
home  he  retired  into  a  forest,  and,  kneeling  down  by  a 
large  tree,  covenanted  with  God  to  live  and  die  in  his 
service,  whatever  might  be  the  sacrifice  involved  in  the 
resolution.  Soon  after  he  heard  Mitchell  again;  the 
discourse  was  one  of  remarkable  power;  it  disclosed  to 
him,  in  a  manner  he  had  never  yet  perceived,  the  ex- 
ceeding sinfulness  of  sin,  and  the  peril  of  the  unrenewed 
soul.  He  was  now  seized  with  unutterable  anxiety,  and 
for  several  weeks  gave  himself  to  prayer  with  anguish 
and  tears,  night  and  day ;  divine  truth  shone  upon  his 
conscience  in  all  its  reality,  and  he  trembled  under 
the  sense  of  his  sinfulness  and  danger.  Such,  usually, 
are  the  profound  convictions  and  spiritual  travail  of 
those  whom  God  designs  for  important  purposes  in  his 
Church. 

He  looked  with  longing  solicitude  for  the  next  visit  of 
the  itinerant  evangelist,  who  soon  arrived  and  preached 
in  the  house  where  the  youthful  penitent  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  read  the  sermons  of  Wesley.  After  the  dis- 
course a  class-meeting  was  held,  as  usual,  by  the  preacher; 
on  ascertaining  the  deep  convictions  of  young  Hedding, 
he  proposed  that  special  prayer  should  be  made  in  his 
behalf;  the  itinerant  and  the  pious  cottagers  bowed 
around  him,  and  continued  in  supplication  till  peace 
dawned  on  his  troubled  spirit.  This  was  on  the  27th  of 
December,  1798. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  55 

It  was  not  long  before  he  was  licensed  to  exhort,  and 
hi  about  a  year  he  was  sent  by  the  presiding  elder  to 
Essex  Circuit,  Vt.,  to  supply  the  place  of  the  eccentric 
Lorenzo  Dow,  who,  after  traveling  and  laboring  with 
iucredible  diligence,  had  departed  under  a  supposed 
divine  impression  to  preach  in  Ireland.  He  continued 
about  three  months  ou  the  circuit,  exhorting,  without 
a  text,  at  all  the  appointments,  holding  a  public  meeting 
and  leading  a  class  daily.  His  word  was  in  demonstra- 
tion of  the  Spirit  and  of  power,  aud  revivals  broke  out 
around  the  whole  circuit.  He  soon  after  received  license 
as  a  local  preacher,  and  was  sent  by  the  presiding  elder 
to  Plattsburgh  Circuit,  X.  Y.,  whence  he  was  trans 
ferred  in  about  six  weeks  to  Cambridge  Circuit,  to  sup- 
ply the  place  of  a  disabled  preacher.  At  the  Conference 
of  1801  he  was  received  on  probation,  and  dispatched 
again  to  Plattsburgh.  It  was  a  long  circuit,  requiring 
about  three  hundred  miles  of  travel  monthly,  with  da;T/ 
public  labors.  It  reached  from  Ticonderoga  on  the 
s<>uth,  to  beyond  the  Canada  line  on  the  north,  mean- 
dering extensively  to  the  right  and  left,  and  the  labori- 
ous itinerant  was  compelled  to  swim  streams,  travel-'' 
forests  on  new  and  rough  roads,  and  sleep  in  log-cabin  a 
through  which  the  rain  and  snow  often  beat  upon  him 
in  his  bed.  Many  of  the  settlements  were  recent,  and 
in  some  of  them  the  gospel  had  never  been  preached 
before.  The  settlers  thronged  to  hear  the  word,  and  a 
flame  of  divine  influence  spread  through  the  circuit,  and 
hosts  were  gathered  into  the  Church.  In  1802  he  was 
appointed  to  Fletcher  Circuit,  another  large  field  <>i 
labor,  extending  from  <  > 1 1 i « . 1 1  River,  Vt.,  on  the  south, 
fifteen  or  twenty  miles  beyond  the  Canada  line,  and 
including  the  settlements  east  of  Lake  Champlain  and 
west  of  the  Green  Mountains.     Here  he  had  t<>  travel 


56  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

three  hundred  miles  a  month,  preach  once,  and  often 
twice  daily,  besides  attending  classes  and  prayer-meet- 
meetings.  His  colleague  was  Henry  Ryan,  "a  brave 
Irishman,"  he  says,  a  man  who  labored  as  if  the  judg- 
ment thunders  were  to  follow  each  sermon.15  The  route 
of  the  circuit  was  in  the  form  of  the  figure  eight.  The 
two  preachers  usually  met  at  the  point  of  intersection, 
when  Ryan,  hastily  saluting  his  young  fellow-laborer, 
would  exclaim  as  he  passed,  "  Drive  on !  drive  on ! 
brother,  let  us  drive  the  devil  out  of  the  land  ! "  a  sig- 
nificant though  rough  expression  of  the  tireless  energy 
which  characterized  the  itinerant  ministry  of  that  day. 
Here,  likewise,  were  encountered  all  the  privations  and 
exposures  of  a  recent  country ;  bad  roads,  long  drives 
in  wintry  storms,  and  through  forests  bound  in  ice, 
and  sleepless  nights  spent  in  cabins  through  which  the 
winds  whistled  and  the  rain  dropped.  More  serious 
trials  attended  them  and  their  successors  in  this  region ; 
while  many  of  the  settlers  were  hungry  for  the  word  of 
life,  and  welcomed  them  as  the  men  who  showed  the 
way  of  salvation ;  others,  perverted  by  their  long  priva- 
tion of  religious  influences,  pursued  them  with  relentless 
persecutions.  In  some  places  Hedding  was  hooted  and 
threatened  in  the  streets ;  Dow  was  struck  in  the  face ; 
Abner  Wood  was  horsewhipped;  and  Elijah  Sabin 
severely  wounded  on  the  head  by  the  butt-end  of  a 
whip.  Still  they  prevailed ;  their  persecutors  were  often 
marvelously  awakened,  multitudes  received  them  joy- 
fully, and  gladly  shared  the  reproach  of  the  cross,  and 
now  peaceful  and  prosperous  Churches  are  spread  all 
over  that  region,  the  fruits  of  the  toils  and  sufferings  of 
Hedding  and  his  co-laborers. 

In  3  803  he  was  sent  to  Bridgewater  Circuit,  N.  H., 
16  Letter  of  Hedding  to  the  author. 


if  ET  HOD  1ST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  57 

which  comprised  thirteen  towns,  and  required  one  hund- 
red miles  travel  per  week,  two  sermons  usually  a  day, 
and  three  on  the  Sabbath.  Here  he  had  no  colleague, 
but  bore  the  burden  alone.  A  remarkable  revival 
attended  his  labors,  intense  interest  spread  throughout 
the  circuit,  hundreds  were  awakened,  and  it  seemed 
that  the  whole  population  were  about  to  turn  unto  God 
by  repentance.  Excited,  himself,  by  the  general  interest, 
and  unaided  by  a  fellow-laborer,  he  exerted  himself  be- 
yond his  strength,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  labors  was 
smitten  down  by  disease  from  which  he  never  entirely 
recovered.  He  was  unable  to  turn  himself  in  bed,  or 
lift  food  to  his  lips  during  six  weeks,  and  more  than 
four  months  passed  before  he  could  walk  across  his 
chamber;  he  resumed,  however,  his  wrork,  and  the  re- 
mainder of  the  year  went  around  the  circuit,  preaching 
as  he  had  strength,  and  gathering  the  fruits  of  his 
former  labors.  He  formed  during  this  year  many  new 
societies,  which  are  still  thriving.  In  1804  he  was  on 
Hanover  Circuit,  N.  H.  The  next  year  he  was  present 
at  the  Lynn  Conference,  and  wras  ordained  elder  by 
Bishop  Asbury,  at  a  public  service  in  a  neighboring 
woods.  From  this  Conference  he  was  sent  to  Barre  Cir- 
cuit, Vt.,  with  Dan  Young.  Here  again  he  had  a  great 
field  of  trial  and  toil,  preaching  in  twenty  towns  and 
riding  about  three  hundred  miles  every  four  weeks,  with 
daily  services. 

In  180G  he  traveled  the  Vershire  Circuit,  Vt.  Dur- 
ing this  year  his  prudence  was  called  into  exercise  and 
tested  by  a  remarkable  occurrence.  The  disposition  to 
emigrate  to  Ohio  infected  that  whole  section  of  the 
country.  It  became  a  species  of  mania,  and  every 
official  member  of  the  circuit  departed  about  the  same 
time,  'eaving  it  without  a  local  preacher,  trustee,  -tew- 

d 


58  HISTORY     OF    TH£ 

ard,  or  leader.  The  Church,  through  the  whole  serieH 
of  towns  comprised  in  the  circuit,  was  thus  suddenly 
left  without  a  siugle  officer,  and  the  vacant  posts  had 
to  be  as  suddenly  filled  by  new  appointments.  Hcd- 
ding's  wisdom  was,  however,  found  adequate  to  the 
singular  exigency.  He  selected  judicious  and  efficient 
men,  and  no  inconvenience  ensued.  In  1807  he  was 
appointed  presiding  elder  of  New  Hampshire  District, 
which  included  the  entire  extent  of  the  state,  except  a 
small  fragment  about  Portsmouth,  which  pertained  to  the 
Boston  District.  His  labors  this  year  were  herculean, 
involving  at  least  three  thousand  miles  of  travel  and  a 
daily  public  service,  besides  the  usual  and  perplexing 
ecclesiastical  business  of  the  office;  such,  too,  was  the 
poverty  of  the  infant  Churches  on  the  district,  that  at 
the  end  of  the  year  his  aggregate  receipts  for  salary, 
besides  traveling  expenses,  was  $>4  25.  He  continued 
two  years  on  this  district,  and  saw  Methodism  extended 
vastly  in  the  state.  In  1809  he  was  removed  to  New 
London  District,  which  he  traveled  two  years.  It  ex- 
tended from  Long  Island  Sound  to  New  Hampshire,  and 
from  the  Connecticut  River  to  Narragansett  Bay,  R.  I., 
and  Needham,  Mass.  Several  camp-meetings  were  held 
within  it  during  those  two  years,  and  were  remarkably 
successful.  One  particularly,  at  Hebron,  Conn.,  was 
attended  by  a  large  concourse,  about  three  thousand 
people  being  there  constantly,  many  from  great  dis- 
tances. The  preaching  was  distinguished  by  extraor- 
dinary effects.  It  was  estimated  by  Hedding  himself, 
that  under  one  sermon  "  five  hundred  persons  fell  to  the 
earth  as  if  shot,  in  five  minutes."  The  excitement  was 
resistless,  and  many  sober-minded  Christians,  who  had 
always  opposed  such  scenes,  were  smitten  down  and  lay 
insensible  for  hours.    The  fruits  of  those  great  occasions 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  59 

are  still  scattered  through  New  England.  During  the 
following  four  years  he  was  stationed,  respectively,  at 
Bostou,  Nantucket,  and  Lynn ;  at  the  latter  two  years. 
In  the  years  1815,  1816  he  again  labored  in  Boston, 
with  Daniel  Fillmore.  This  was  a  critical  period  in 
the  history  of  Methodism  in  that  city,  the  darkest  day 
that  ever  Lowered  over  it.  After  unparalleled  struggles 
the  society  had  succeeded,  at  large  expense,  in  erecting 
the  Bromfield-street  Chapel.  The  effects  of  the  recent 
war  on  business  frustrated  their  fiscal  plans,  and  left  them 
with  insupportable  incumbrances.  Eighteen  thousand 
dollars,  an  enormous  sum  for  the  feeble  society,  must  be 
raised  within  a  limited  time,  or  their  property  be  for- 
feited. The  embarrassment  seemed  inextricable,  and  as 
one  board  of  trustees  held  both  houses,  it  was  the  genera/ 
anticipation  that  all  the  Methodists  of  Boston  would  be 
"tinned  out  of  doors"  and  left  without  a  sanctuary. 
But  at  this  critical  juncture  the  generosity  and  business 
talent  of  Colonel  Amos  Binney,  an  energetic  Methodist, 
together  with  the  exertions  of  their  pastors,  provided 
deliverance  for  them.  The  former,  who  was  conduct- 
ing an  exteusive  business,  pledged  himself  that  if  tho 
latter  would  sell  on  credit  a  number  of  pews,  equiv- 
alent in  value  to  the  debt,  he  would  accept  the  notes  ot 
the  purehasers,  allow  them  to  be  paid  in  work,  according 
to  their  respective  avocations,  and  pay  down  at  once  the 
neeessary  sum  of  eighteen  thousand  dollars.  Hedding 
and  Fillmore  applied  themselves  to  the  task  incessantly 
for  several  months,  interceding  with  every  one  they  met 
from  whom  they  could  expect  assistance,  and  at  last,  by 
extraordinary  exertions,  proeured  the  needed  number 
of  purchasers.  The  latter  held  a  public  meeting  at  the 
chapel,  Bigned  their  notes,  the  money  was  munificently 
paid  down  by  Colonel  Binney,  and  the  chapels  of  Meth 
D— o 


60  HISTORY     OF    THE 

odisni  in  Boston  saved.  And  thus  began  the  "  pewed 
system"  in  American  Methodism. 

The  next  year  Hedding  was  appointed  to  Portland 
District,  and  is  so  reported  in  the  Minutes ;  but,  owing 
to  his  enfeebled  health,  the  appointment  was  changed  to 
Portland  city.  The  ensuing  three  years  he  was  at  Lynn 
(two  years)  and  New  London.  In  1821  he  took  charge 
of  Boston  Distri'  t,  but  his  health  was  not  sufficient  for 
its  great  labors.  The  pulmonary  and  rheumatic  affec- 
tions he  had  contracted  by  exposures  and  excessive 
labors  on  Bridgewater  Circuit,  N.  H.,  still  affected  him, 
and  not  a  day  or  night  passed  from  that  time  till  his 
death,  in  which  he  was  not  reminded,  by  more  or  less 
pain,  of  those  days  of  toil  and  suffering.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  retire  from  the  district  at  the  close  of  the  year, 
and  was  returned  to  the  city  of  Boston,  where  he  labored 
two  years,  and  in  1824  was  elevated  to  the  episcopacy. 
The  remainder  of  his  life  will  come  under  our  attention 
elsewhere.  The  whole  nation  became  his  field.  He 
stood  firmly  at  his  post  in  days  of  strife  and  peril,  and 
aided  in  conducting  the  Church  through  exigencies 
which  made  the  stoutest  hearts  tremble.  From  the 
time  he  commenced  proclaiming  the  truth  in  the  wilds 
of  New  Hampshire  and  Canada,  he  never  wavered  in 
the  hope  that  God  designed  Methodism  for  enduring 
and  universal  triumphs. 

Bishop  Hedding,  as  remembered  by  most  of  the 
Church,  was  tall,  stout,  and  dignified  in  person;  his 
locks  white  with  age,  his  face  remarkable  for  its  be- 
nign and  intelligent  expression,  and  his  tout  ensemble 
most  venerable  and  impressive.  His  manners  were 
marked  by  perfect  simplicity  and  ease.  In  the  pulpit 
he  was  always  perspicuous,  lucid,  and  instructive.  His 
discourses  were   precisely  arranged,  delivered  moder- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  61 

ately,  in  a  style  of  extreme  plainness,  and  frequently 
with  passages  of  affecting  pathos.  He  was  distinguished 
for  his  accuracy  in  the  doctrines  and  discipline  of  Meth- 
odism, the  exact  discrimination  of  his  judgment,  (lie 
extraordinary  tenacity  of  his  memory,  the  permanence 
oi  his  friendships,  and  his  invariable  prudence. 

The  ecclesiastical  year  1799-1800  included  thirteen 
months,  and  had  been  attended  with  gratifying  pros- 
perity. Beauchamp  and  Snelling  had  spread  the  doc- 
trines of  Methodism  through  most  of  the  towns  of  Cape 
Cod.  Rhode  Island,  so  tardy  in  the  new  movement, 
had  received  a  strong  impulse  under  the  unremitted 
labors  of  Canfield,  Hall,  and  Bishop.  Instead  of  one  cir- 
cuit it  now  reported  two ;  a  new  one  had  been  formed, 
calleel  Rhode  Island.  Considerable  impression  had  been 
made  on  Connecticut,  especially  on  the  New  Loudon 
Circuit.  The  tireless  Lawrence  M'Coombs,  combating 
opposition  on  all  hands,  had  succeeded  in  fortifying  the 
yet  feeble  societies  throughout  that  large  circuit,  and  in 
planting  several  new  ones.  Ostranclcr  had  reaped  some 
increase  on  Tolland  Circuit.  While  in  some  places 
in  Massachusetts  a  declension  had  occurred,  in  others 
extensive  revivals  had  prevailed  :  Xantucket  made  its 
first  returns  of  members,  amounting  to  sixty-five;  Daniel 
Brumley  had  witnessed  the  victories  of  the  truth  on 
Pittsfield  Circuit ;  hundreds  felt  its  power,  and  more 
than  one  hundred  and  eighty  were  received  into  the 
Church.  Chesterfield,  hitherto  the  solitary  circuit  of 
New  Hampshire,  had  also  enjoyed  the  time  of  refresh- 
ing under  the  labor-  of  John  Nichols,  The  hardy  labor- 
ers in  the  field  of  Maine — Merritt,  Soule,  Brodhead, 
Heath, Finnegan, and  others — had  passed  through  Bev<  re 
struggles,  but  with  their  usual  buc<  i  bs.  Their  leader, 
Joshua  Taylor,  had  been  drummed  out  of  Castine  with 


02  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

tin  kettles,  and  their  cause  had  been  attacked  with  not  a 
little  pugnacity  from  the  pulpit  and  the  press  by  their 
Calvinistic  brethren.  Some  agitation  was  excited  by  a 
pamphlet  entitled,  "A  brief  Statement  and  Examina- 
tion of  the  Sentiments  of  the  Wesley  an  Methodists,  by 
Jonathan  Ward,  A.  M."  Taylor,  however,  published 
a  timely  reply  in  a  pamphlet  of  seventy-six  pages,  which 
was  written  in  a  style  perspicuous  and  lucid,  in  a 
temper  bland  and  devout,  and  with  a  decisive  logic. 
Ward,  though  manifestly  foiled,  returned  to  the  attack 
under  cover  of  a  "  Vindication  of  himself;"  but  a  "Re- 
ply" from  Taylor  put  an  end  to  the  controversy,  and 
turned  the  advantage  greatly  to  the  persecuted  Church. 
In  Vermont  the  fields  were  white  unto  the  harvest, 
and  the  reapers  thrust  in  the  sickle  and  gathered  a 
plenteous  crop ;  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  were  con- 
verted, and  nearly  five  hundred  were  gathered  into  the 
societies.  The  eccentric  Lorenzo  Dow  had  labored  a 
short  time  with  success  on  Essex  Circuit,  which  ex- 
tended through  the  northern  part  of  the  state  into 
Canada.  Seized  by  a  sudden  impression  that  it  was  his 
duty  to  cross  the  Atlantic  and  warn  the  Papists  of  Ire- 
land, he  erected  a  bush  as  a  sail  in  a  leaking  canoe,  and 
passing  down  the  Missisque  made  his  way  to  Montreal, 
whence  he  pursued  his  proposed  voyage ;  but  it  was  on 
this  deserted  circuit  that  Providence  now  raised  up  the 
youthful  evangelist,  Elijah  Hedding,  who  took  Dow's 
place,  and  was  destined  to  bear  the  standard  of  the  truth 
onward  over  the  continent,  and  to  be  a  burning  and 
a  shining  light  in  the  nation.  Full  of  zeal  and  the  eivr^j 
of  youth,  he  went  round  the  circuit  like  a  "  flame  oi 
fire ;"  great  numbers  were  converted,  and  more  than  a 
hundred  and  sixty  were  added  to  the  classes.  Ver- 
gennes  Circuit  was  traveled  this  year  by  two  indomit- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  60 

able  men,  Joseph  Mitchell  and  Joseph  Sawyer ;  it  was  a 
scene  of  great  labors  and  equal  trials,  but  they  bore 
courageously  the  brunt  of  the  battle.  A  reformation 
spread  over  the  circuit,  and  about  seventy  were  gathered 
into  the  classes.  While  Hedding,  Mitchell,  and  Sawyer 
were  thus  spreading  the  cause  west  of  the  Green  Mount- 
ains, Joseph  Crawford  and  Elijah  Chichester  were  ex- 
tending it  still  more  successfully  east  of  them  on  the 
Yershire  Circuit,  where  more  than  a  hundred  were 
added  to  the  Church,  besides  hundreds  who  were  con- 
verted, but  entered  other  communions.  Whitingham 
Circuit,  which  had  been  detached  and  extended  from 
the  northern  part  of  Pittsfield  Circuit  at  the  beginning 
of  the  year,  had  prospered  greatly  under  the  labors  of 
the  good  Peter  Vannest ;  it  made  its  first  return  ol 
members,  amounting  to  nearly  one  hundred.  Only  four 
years  had  passed  since  Nicholas  Snethen  traveled,  the 
first  itinerant,  on  the  first  circuit  in  Vermont;  there 
were  now  nearly  eleven  hundred  Methodists  in  the 
state.  They  had  much  more  than  trebled,  nearly  quad- 
rupled, in  two  years. 

There  was  at  the  end  of  the  present  ecclesiastical 
year  the  following  number  of  Methodists  in  each  New 
England  state:  Connecticut,  1,571;  Rhode  Island,  227; 
Massachusetts,  1,577;  Maine,  1,197;  Xew  Hampshire, 
171 ;  Vermont,  1,096;  total,  5,839. 

We  have  reached  the  date  of  a  new  century,  of  the 
organization  of  the  Xew  England  Conference  by  its 
separation  from  that  of  Xew  York,  and  of  the  retire- 
ment of  Lee,  the  chief  hero  of  this  part  of  our  narrative, 
from  the  eastern  field.  We  have  seen  him,  solitary  and 
friendless,  begin  his  mission  in  Xew  England  by  pro- 
claiming  "Ye  must  be  born  again,'1  on  the  highway  of 
Norwalk,   June   17,   1789;    eleven   years   have    passed, 


64  HISTORY    OF    THE 

years  of  vast  labors,  sore  trials,  of  poverty  and  per- 
plexity, yet  of  triumph.  A  host  of  great  evangelists 
have  entered  the  field :  Roberts,  Smith,  Bloodgood, 
Mills,  Hunt,  Taylor,  Mudge,  Pickering,  Ostrander, 
Mitchell,  M'Coombs,  Brodhead,Merritt,  Sabin,  Bostwick, 
Beauchamp,  Coate,  Soule,  Hedding,  Kibby,  Webb,  and 
many  others  who  were  "  mighty  through  God."  They 
have  confounded  opposition,  have  preached  the  word 
"  in  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power,"  from 
Fairfield  in  Connecticut  to  the  furthest  eastern  settle- 
ment of  Maine,  and  from  Provincetown  in  Massachusetts 
to  St.  Alban's  in  Vermont.  They  have  laid  securely 
the  foundations  of  Methodism  in  the  New  England 
states,  and  at  the  close  of  eleven  years  we  behold  it 
spread  into  bands,  comprising  nearly  50  preachers  and 
more  than  5,800  members,  an  average  of  about  120  to 
each  preacher,  and  these  members  and  preachers , dis- 
tributed over  four  districts  and  thirty-one  circuits. 

Availing  myself  of  the  minute  documentary  materials 
of  the  New  England  Church,  I  have  endeavored  to  use, 
as  fully  as  possible,  her  historic  traditions  of  the  last 
century,  for  these  early  facts  are  the  best  illustrations 
of  the  genius  of  Methodism.  Their  record  is  not  dis- 
proportionate to  her  subsequent  and  important  relations 
to  the  rest  of  the  denomination,  and  most  of  her  bio- 
graphic characters,  hitherto  sketched,  became  actors  in 
its  general  history;  but  hereafter  we  shall  necessarily 
have  to  pass  more  rapidly  over  her  local  annals. 

In  the  remainder  of  the  period  Asbury,  accom- 
panied by  Whatcoat,  made  repeated  tours  through  tbe 
Eastern  States,  penetrating  to  the  interior  of  Maim-. 
Their  visits  were  high  festivals  to  the  young  Churches, 
and  the  Conference  sessions,  especially,  were  jubilees. 
Lee  also,  in  the  summer  of  1800,  re-entered  the  great 


ilETIIODISl     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  65 

field  for  the  last  time,  except  a  hasty  visit  some  eight 
years  later.  It  was  his  general  leave-taking.  He  passed 
through  its  whole  extent  into  Canada,  and  back  by  the 
Hudson,  preaching  farewell  sermons  amid  the  bene- 
dictions and  tears  of  the  people.  His  fellow-laborers 
and  fellow-sufferers  in  the  itinerancy  parted  with  him, 
from  place  to  place,  with  the  deepest  feeling,  as  from 
a  hero  who  had  led  them  to  victory,  and  had  secured 
for  them  the  hard-fought  field.  During  this  circuitous 
aud  rapid  journey  his  preaching  averaged  more  than 
one  sermon  a  day ;  he  was  continually  occupied  also  in 
social  prayer  and  counsels  with  the  societies.  He  now 
leaves  Xew  England  to  pursue  his  evangelic  course, 
with  unabated  heroism,  in  other  sections.  The  founda- 
tions of  Methodism  had  been  laid  by  him  in  all  the 
Eastern  States ;  a  large  Conference  had  been  organ- 
ized ;  chapels  had  sprung  up ;  a  powerful  ministry  was 
moving  to  and  fro,  proclaiming  the  "great  salvation" 
through  extended  but  organized  circuits,  and  thou- 
sands of  converts  were  recorded  on  the  roll  of  the 
Church.  A  great  work  had  been  achieved,  and  a 
great  man  had  left  his  stamp  upon  the  ecclesiastical 
history  of  all  Xew  England.  His  name,  until  recently, 
has  been  but  little  noted  beyond  the  pale  of  his  own 
denomination ;  but  his  instrumentality  is  developing 
broader  and  broader  results  as  time  elapses,  and  the 
future  ecclesiastical  historian  of  these  Eastern  States 
will  place  him  among  the  foremost  men  of  their  relig 
ious  annals. 

The  remaining  four  years  were  abundant  in  itinerant 
reinforcements ;  but  most  of  them,  with  others  here- 
tofore omitted,  will  more  conveniently  come  under 
notice  in  future  parts  of  our  narrative:  Daniel  Eidler, 
a  laborer,  from  Virginia  and  tin-   Redstone  country,  to 


66  HISTORY    OP    THE 

Nova  Scotia,  and  at  last  a  patriarch  of  the  New  Jersey 
Conference ;  Ebenezer  F.  Newhall,  an  ap  Jstle  of  those 
memorable  times ;  Philip  Munger  and  Asa  Heath,  vet- 
erans of  Maine  Conference ;  Asa  Kent,  a  patriarch  of 
Providence  Conference,  and  indeed  of  all  New  En- 
gland, still  remembered  by  many  for  the  sanctity  of  his 
life,  his  small  stature,  halting  gait,  wenned  neck,  and 
grave  aspect,  a  man  without  a  particle  of  humor,  yet 
looked  upon  by  his  brethren,  many  of  the  best  of  whom 
were  radiant  with  it,  with  kindliness,  though  not  un- 
mixed with  apparent  wonder  and  perplexity;  Samuel 
Hillman,  long  a  hard  worker  in  Maine ;  Oliver  Beale,  a 
saint  in  the  calendar  of  the  Church ;  and  many  others 
equally  worthy. 

Thomas  Branch  was  now  a  faithful  and  eminent  itin- 
erant, whose  health  broke  down  at  last  under  the  sever- 
ities of  the  climate.  He  proposed  to  go  to  the  south- 
west, and  labor,  while  his  dwindling  strength  should 
last,  in  the  Western  Conference,  the  only  Conference 
then  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  Besides  the  various 
choice  of  climate  which  this  immense  field  afforded, 
there  was,  to  the  devoted  mind  of  Branch,  an  heroic  if 
not  romantic  attraction  in  its  adventurous  life,  and  the 
triumph  with  which  the  itinerant  ministry  was  prevail- 
ing in  its  wildernesses.  He  took  leave  of  his  Eastern 
brethren  in  much  debility,  and  departed  on  horseback, 
with  the  usual  itinerant  accompaniment,  the  saddle-bags 
for  his  few  books  and  rations,  to  penetrate  through  the 
forests  to  Marietta,  on  the  Ohio.  He  never  arrived, 
however.  On  passing  from  the  western  wilds  of  New 
York,  down  toward  Ohio,  along  the  southern  shore  of 
Lake  Erie,  he  disappeared.  News  came  at  last  that  he 
had  died  somewhere  among  the  log-cabins  in  the  then 
remote   forest  of  the  northwestern  angle  of  Pennsyl- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUKCII.  67 

rania ;  but  even  this  vague  information  reached  not- 
most  of  those  to  whom  he  was  dear  in  Xew  England  till 
fifteen  years  later,  when  one  of  his  old  fellow-laborers  at 
the  East,  who  had,  meanwhile,  been  elevated  to  the 
episcopacy,  was  pursuing  his  official  visitations  at  the 
West,  and  accidentally  discovering  the  place  of  his 
decease,  sent  home  for  publication  information  of  his 
fate.16  "He  fell,"'  wrote  his  friend,  "in  the  wilder- 
ness, on  his  way  to  this  country,  in  the  month  of 
June,  1812.  His  grave  is  in  the  woods,  in  the 
state  of  Pennsylvania,  near  the  shore  of  Lake  Erie, 
between  the  states  of  New  York  and  Ohio.  As  I  came 
through  that  part  of  the  country  I  made  inquiry  respect- 
ing the  sickness,  death,  and  burial  of  our  once  beloved 
fellow-laborer  in  the  cause  of  Christ.  An  intelligent 
friend,  who  said  he  had  frequently  visited  and  watched 
with  him  in  his  last  sickness,  and  attended  his  funeral, 
gave  me,  in  substance,  the  following  circumstances. 
When  he  came  into  the  neighborhood  where  he  died  it 
was  a  new  settlement,  where  there  was  no  Methodist 
society,  and  but  few  professors  of  religion  of  any  name. 
He  preached  on  a  Sabbath,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
service  stated  to  the  strangers  that  he  was  on  a  journey, 
that  he  was  ill,  and  unable  to  proceed,  and  desired  that 
some  one  would  entertain  him  till  he  should  recover  his 
strength  sufficiently  to  pursue  his  journey.  There  was 
a  long  time  of  silence  in  the  congregation.  At  last  one 
man  came  forward  and  invited  him  home.  At  that 
house  he  lingered  many  weeks,  and  finally  expired. 
The  accommodations  were  poor  for  a  sick  man — a  small 
l<»ghou=e,  containing  a  large  family,  consisting  in  part 
of  small  children;    but  doubtless  it   was   tie  best  the 

14  Bishop  Hedding,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  these  facta,  and  who 
published  them  in  the  Zlon'e  Berald  of 


68  HISTORY    OF    THE 

place  could  afford.  In  his  sickness  (which  was  a  pul- 
monary consumption)  his  sufferings  were  severe ;  but 
his  patience  and  his  religious  consolations  were  great 
also.  He  frequently  preached,  prayed,  and  exhorted, 
sitting  on  his  bed,  when  he  was  unable  to  go  out,  or 
even  to  stand.  And  so  he  continued  laboring  for  the 
salvation  of  men  while  his  strength  would  permit,  and 
rejoicing  in  the  Lord  to  the  hour  of  his  death.  The 
above-named  eye  and  ear  witness  informed  me  that  he 
frequently  said  to  him,  c  It  is  an  inscrutable  providence 
that  brought  me  here  to  die  in  this  wilderness.'  '  But,' 
said  the  witness,  'that  providence  was  explained  after 
his  death ;  for,  through  the  instrumentality  of  his  labors, 
his  patience,  fortitude,  and  religious  joys  in  his  sickness, 
a  glorious  revival  of  religion  shortly  after  took  place,  a 
goodly  number  of  souls  were  converted  to  God,  other 
preachers  were  invited  to  the  place,  and  a  large  Meth- 
odist society  was  organized  after  his  death.'  That 
society  continues  to  prosper,  and  they  have  now  a 
good  house  for  worship.  After  the  soul  of  our 
brother  had  gone  to  heaven,  his  body  was  conveyed 
to  the  grave  on  a  sled,  drawn  by  oxen.  The  corpse 
was  carried  to  a  log  building  in  the  woods,  called  a 
meeting-house ;  but  the  proprietors  denied  admittance, 
and  the  funeral  solemnities  were  performed  without. 
As  I  came  through  the  woodland  in  company  with  a 
preacher,  having  been  informed  where  the  place  of  his 
interment  was,  leaving  our  horse  and  carriage  by  the 
road,  we  walked  some  rods  into  the  forest,  and  found 
the  old  log  meeting  house,  which  had  refused  the  stran- 
ger the  rites  of  a  funeral ;  but  it  was  partly  fallen,  and 
forsaken.  Then  following  a  narrow  path  some  distance 
further  through  the  woods,  we  came  to  a  small  opening, 
which  appeared  to  have  been  cleared  of  the  wood  for  a 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUKCH.  69 

habitation  for  the  dead.  After  walking  and  looking 
some  time,  a  decent  stone,  near  one  corner  of  the  yard, 
under  the  Bhade  of  the  thick-set,  tall  forest,  informed  us 
where  the  body  of  our  dear  departed  friend  had  been 
laid.  A  large  oak  tree  had  fallen,  and  lay  across  two 
of  the  adjoining  tenants  of  that  lonely  place.  We 
kneeled,  prayed,  and  lei't  the  quiet  spot,  in  joyful 
hope  of  meeting  our  brother  again  at  the  resurrection 
of  the  just." 

Thomas  Branch  was  an  able  preacher.  His  old  fel- 
low laborers  spoke  of  him,  in  their  Conference  obituary, 
with  unwonted  emphasis  :  ';  An  Israelite  indeed,  in  life, 
and  in  death.  Who  ever  saw  him  without  the  gravity 
and  sincerity  of  a  Christian  minister?  always  apparently 
collected  and  recollected,  a  child  of  affliction,  and  a  son 
of  resignation  ;  how  loved  and  honored  of  God  and 
men  !  For  several  years  a  member  of  our  connection, 
and  secretary  of  the  Xew  England  Conference.  Rest, 
rest,  weaiy  dust !  Rest,  weary  spirit,  with  the  Father 
of  spirits,  and  live  forever  !  " 

Martin  Ruter,  who  was  born  in  Sutton,  Mass.,  in 
1785,  but  sleeps  in  a  missionary  ^rave  on  the  banks  of 
the  Brazos,  in  Texas,  entered  the  eastern  itinerant  ranks 
in  1801,  called  into  them  by  Brodhead.  He  was  one  of 
the  noblest  sons  of  Xew  England,  a  good  debater  and 
writer,  an  able  preacher,  a  leader  of  the  educational 
interests  of  the  denomination  in  the  East  and  in  the 
West,  one  of  its  best  representative  characters  for  many 
years,  and  at  last  a  pioneer  evangelist  on  its  farthest 
frontier.     We  shall  meet  him  often  hereafter. 

Laban  Clark  also  appears  on  the  Conference  roll,  for 
the  first  time,  in  1801.  Born  in  Haverhill,  N.  H.,  in 
1778,  and  early  removing  to  Vermont,  lie  heard  some  of 
the  fir>t  evangelist-  who  penetrated  the  latl  and 


70  HISTORY    OF    THE 

became  a  Methodist  in  1799.  In  1800  he  was  preaching 
about  his  neighborhood  with  John  Langdon,  a  local 
preacher,  and  one  of  the  principal  founders  of  the 
Church  in  Vermont.  Brodhead  who,  the  same  year, 
had  pressed  Ruter  into  the  itinerant  service,  now  sum- 
moned out  Clark,  and  thus  presented  to  the  Church 
two  of  its  most  important  public  men.  Clark  still  lives, 
after  more  than  sixty  years  of  invaluable  services,  which 
will  bring  him  often  before  us;  his  life,  like  that  of 
Ruter,  has  been  so  extensively  identified  with  the  gen- 
eral history  of  the  Church  as  not  to  admit  of  its  indi- 
vidualization here.  A  man  of  vigorous  physical  health, 
of  strong  and  genial  mind,  of  great  practical  capacity, 
of  never-wavering  enthusiasm  for  his  Church  and  all  its 
important  enterprises,  a  living  history  of  it  for  more 
than  threescore  years,  and  an  able  preacher,  notwith- 
standing a  marked  vocal  defect,  he  has  been  prominent 
among  its  most  exponent  characters. 

These  remaining  four  years  were  eventful  to  the 
Church  all  over  the  Eastern  States.  They  began  with 
the  first  session  of  the  New  England  Conference,  as  a 
distinct  organized  body,  at  Lynn,  Mass.,  July  8,  1800. 
Revivals  prevailed  generally,  greatly  increasing  the 
congregations  and  societies.  The  itinerancy  was  not 
only  largely  recruited,  but  in  a  few  places  tested  by 
severe  persecutions.  Elijah  R.  Sabin  was  mobbed  on 
Needham  Circuit,  where  he  preached  in  the  open  air. 
Some  of  his  brethren,  at  the  Conference,  would  moderate 
his  zeal;  but  Asbury  approved  him,  affirming  that  "this 
is  the  way  Methodist  preachers  began,  and  we  need 
warm  hearts  to  carry  the  work  forward."  The  Boston 
Methodists  suffered  much  from  the  rabble,  who  besieged 
their  humble  temple,  begun  on  Hanover  Avenue  (then 

known  as  Methodist  Alley)  in  1 795,  but  not  complete/3 
d 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  71 

till  1S00,  after  which  time,  say  its  old  records,  "the 
troubled  and  persecuted  society  found,  in  some  degree, 
rest  to  their  souls;"  it  was  yet  only,  however,  in  "some 
degne."  They  had  still  many  a  sore  conflict  beforo 
cultivated  Boston  properly  recognized  them.  Hibbard 
fought  hi*-;  way  through  intolerable  trials  on  Granville 
Circuit.  He  speaks  of  twenty-six  sermons  a  month  as 
"moderate  labor,"  and  only  complains  when  he  had 
twelve  appointments  a  week,  and  "no  rest- week  in 
which  to  go  home  and  visit  his  family."  •'  Some  days," 
he  says,  "  when  riding  to  my  appointments,  I  was  almost 
all  the  way  in  tears,  often  inquiring  of  the  Lord,  in  ejac- 
ulatory  prayers,  '  What  can  I  do  to  save  these  souls 
from  delusion?'  Some  threw  stones  at  me,  and  some 
set  their  dogs  on  me  as  I  rode  along ;  but  the  Lord 
defended  me.  I  never  had  a  stone  to  hit  me,  nor  a  dog 
to  bite  me.  Some  threatened  to  whip  me  ;  but  I  escaped 
all.  I  heard  of  many  threats,  but  none  laid  hands 
on  me." 

In  Lancaster,  Vt.,  Langdon,  Clark,  and  Crawford 
were  assailed  by  the  mob.  The  ruffians  cowered  before 
the  courage  of  Langdon,  who  was  a  gigantic  and  brave 
man;  but  they  carried  off  Crawford,  and  ducked  him  in 
the  river,  with  huzzas.  In  this  same  state,  now  so  tol- 
erant and  so  Methodistic,  Washburn  had  similar  trials, 
though  better  escapes.  "  I  have  had,"  he  says,  "  stones 
and  snowballs  cast  at  me  in  volleys.  I  have  had  great 
dogs  sent  after  me,  to  frighten  my  horse,  as  I  was  peace- 
fully passing  through  small  villages;  but  I  was  never 
harmed  by  any  of  them.  I  have  been  saluted  with  the 
sound  of 'glory,  hosanna,  amen,  halleluiah  !'  mixed  with 
os.ths  and  profanity.  If  I  turned  my  horse  to  ride  to- 
ward them,  they  would  Bhow  their  want  of  confidence, 
both  in  their  master,  and  in  th  unserves,  by  scattering 


72  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  fleeing  like  base  cowards."  Even  in  Middletownj 
Conn.,  (now  the  seat  of  their  university,)  the  Methodists 
suffered  such  persecutions.  Stocking,  of  Glastenbury, 
long  a  venerated  local  preacher,  writes :  "  I  have  been 
stoned,  and  my  life  put  in  jeopardy,  by  the  lawless 
mob.  Open  persecution  continued  there  until  put  down 
by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law.  Thanks  to  God,  Middle- 
town  is  renovated  !  "  Ostrander,  reporting  a  great  re- 
vival there  in  1802,  says:  "The  spirit  of  persecution  is 
much  awake.  The  houses  where  we  assemble  are  fre- 
quently stoned,  and  the  windows  broken  to  pieces;  but 
all  this  does  not  move  the  young  converts,  who  are  as 
bold  as  lions."  17 

Kibby  was  threatened  with  violence  in  Marblehead, 
and  advised  to  leave  the  town,  but  stood  his  ground 
successfully.  The  Methodists  of  those  days  were  in 
many  places  persecuted  even  to  fines,  the  seizure  ol 
their  goods,  and,  sometimes,  imprisonment,  by  the  dom- 
inant Church.  They  were  denounced  from  the  pulpits, 
maltreated  in  the  courts,  intemrpted  in  the  course  of 
their  sermons  with  charges  of  heresy,  and  assailed  in 
the  streets  by  the  rabble.  Washburn,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  hooted  through  the  villages;  Hedding  cursed  with 
outcries  on  the  highway ;  Dow's  nose  was  publicly 
wrung  ;  Sabin  was  knocked  down,  and  struck  on  the 
head,  to  the  peril  of  his  life,  with  the  butt  of  a  gun  ; 
Wood  was  horsewhipped ;  Christie,  summoned  out  of 
bed  to  answer  to  a  charge  of  violating  the  laws,  by 
marrying  a  couple  of  his  people ;  Willard,  wounded  in 
the  eye  by  a  blow,  the  effect  of  which  was  seen  through 
his  life ;  Mudge,  denied  the  rights  of  a  clergyman,  and 
arraigned  before   the   magistrate  for   assuming  them  ; 

»  Memorials  of  Methodism  in  the  Eastern  States.  Second  series, 
p  196.     New  York,  1854. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  73 

Kibby.  stoned  while  preaching,  and  Taylor  drummed 
out  of  town.  It  requires  more  determination  to  endure 
such  grievances  than  to  meet  graver  trials;  but  the 
early  Methodist  itinerants  were  proof  against  both. 

With  all  its  poverty  and  persecutions  the  Church 
prevailed  surprisingly  during  this  period.  There  were, 
at  its  close,  more  than  ten  thousand  Methodists  in  Newr 
England.18  It  had  about  fifty  circuits,  and  more  than 
eighty  itinerants.  It  had  gained  since  1796  more  than 
seven  thousand  five  hundred  members,  twenty-nine  cir- 
cuits, and  fifty-seven  preachers. 

18  Including  those  who  were  on  New  York  circuits  which  reached 

into  the  Eastern  States. 

d 


74  HISTORY    OF    THE 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

METHODISM  IN  THE  WEST,   1796-1801 

Western  Methodism  —  The  Redstone  Country  —  Valentine  Cook  — 
His  great  Public  Debate  —  Daniel  Hitt  —  James  Quinn — His  long 
Services  and  Character  —  Lasley  Matthews  and  Chieuvrant,  Con- 
verted Papists  and  Heroic  Evangelists  —  Thornton  Flemming  —  Asa 
Shinn  —  Methodism  Penetrates  to  the  Erie  Country  —  The  Roberts 
Family  —  Local  Preachers  —  Robert  R.  Roberts  —  His  Early  Life  and 
Character  —  He  becomes  a  Bishop  —  His  thoroughly  Western  Charac- 
ter—  His  Episcopal  Residence  a  Log-cabin — Illustrations  of  his 
Character  —  Curious  Rencounter  with  a  Young  Preacher:  Note  — 
Methodism  in  the  Erie  Conference — Reaches  Ohio  —Progress  in  West- 
ern Virginia — Quinn's  Labors  there  —  Ministerial  Recruits  —  Gen- 
eral Morgan  —  The  Holston  Country  —  M'Kendree  and  Bruce  —  The 
"Western  Conference"  —  Benjamin  Lakin's  Labors  and  Character 
—  Valentine  Cook  in  the  Holston  Country  —  His  subsequent  Life  — 
His  Death  and  Character  —  Henry  Smith  —  James  M'Cull  —  John 
Sale  — Judge  M'Lean's  Estimate  of  him. 

The  apparent  in  coherency  of  our  record  of  Western 
Methodism  must  still  continue,  for  thus  only  can  it  be 
true  to  the  real  condition  of  the  Church  in  these  early 
times.  An  individual  itinerant,  traveling  a  circuit  of 
five  hundred  or  more  miles ;  a  solitary  layman  or  local 
preacher,  like  M'Cormick  in  the  Northwestern  territory, 
ministering  to  his  emigrant  neighbors ;  "  small  classes," 
the  germs  of  societies,  rising  like  far  scattered  lights  in 
the  wilderness,  such  were  yet,  in  much  of  the  great 
West,  the  only  facts  of  the  denomination ;  but  they  are 
soon  to  assume  continuity  and  consistence,  and  to  present 
one  of  the  most  consolidated  and  effective  systems  of 
religious  provisions  in  the  new,  if  not  indeed  in  the 
wholn  world,  with  stations,  circuits,  districts,  Confer- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  75 

ences,  Sunday-schools,  academies,  colleges,  presses,  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  communicants,  and  millions  of 
congregational  adherents.  It  is  now,  however,  in  the 
minute  study  of  its  inceptive  history  that  we  are  to 
learn  its  real  genius  and  its  best  lessons  for  the 
future. 

We  have  seen  its  progress,  down  to  1796,  in  its  first 
field,  the  ultra- Alleghany  region  of  Pennsylvania,  called 
the  Redstone  country.  The  present  period  opens  there 
with  five  circuits  and  nine  preachers,  comprehended  in 
one  district.  Valentine  Cook  commands  the  little  band 
as  presiding  elder.  We  find  in  it  James  Paynter, 
who  had  pioneered  among  the  Tioga  Mountains,  and 
Nathaniel  B.  Mills,  whom  we  have  met  in  the  Wyoming 
Valley,  its  first  itinerant  preacher,  and  also  an  associate 
of  Lee  in  the  earliest  struggles  of  the  Church  in  New 
England.  Such  was  the  itinerancy  of  these  days.  Cook 
was  the  champion  of  the  field.  He  flew  over  his  dis- 
trict like  a  herald — a  king's  messenger — proclaiming 
the  gospel,  night  and  day,  directing  his  preachers,  and 
rousing  the  scattered  settlements.  The  West  made 
little  use  of  the  press  in  his  day ;  public  debate,  in  the 
shade  of  the  woods,  was  the  usual  resort  of  the  people 
and  their  leaders  for  the  solution  of  both  political  and 
theological  questions.  Though  Methodist  preachers 
disliked  this  doubtful  mode  of  discussing  divine  truth, 
they  sometimes  had  to  conform  to  the  custom.  In  the 
Redstone  country  Cook  was  challenged  to  such  a  debate 
by  a  clergyman  of  the  Scotch  Seceders,  a  denomination 
somewhat  prevalent  there.  The  irascible  Scot  had 
severely  attacked  Wesley  and  Methodism  as  especially 
heretical  respecting  the  "  doctrines  of  grace."  Bishop 
Roberts,  who  ^as  then  a  young  Methodist  on  Cook's 
district,  and  who  "really  thought  that  a  greater  or 
D— 6  * 


76  HISTOBY    OF     THE 

better  man  had  never  existed,"1  witnessed  the  contro- 
versy, and  we  owe  to  him  an  account  of  the  scene. 
The  people  thronged  from  many  miles,  eager  to  witness 
the  combat;  crowding  the  taverns  the  preceding  night, 
and  disputing,  with  spirit,  the  subject  and  the  claims  oi 
the  contestants.  On  the  appointed  morning  they  gath- 
ered in  hosts  around  a  lofty  pulpit  which  had  been 
erected  in  the  midst  of  a  forest,  and  was  surrounded 
with  a  vast  number  of  seats  for  the  immense  concourse. 
These  arrangements  appeared  to  have  been  exclu- 
sively prepared  by  the  votaries  of  the  old  Scotch 
minister.  In  truth,  Roberts  saw  no  one  who  was  at  all 
inclined  to  favor  Cook,  or  his  cause.  Upon  the  whole, 
it  was  perfectly  clear,  from  all  that  he  could  see  and 
hear,  that  a  great  victory,  in  the  estimation  of  the  dom- 
inant party,  was  thai  day  to  be  achieved  on  the  side  of 
Calvinism.  It  was  at  last  announced  that  the  Meth- 
odist preacher  had  arrived.  Roberts  found  him,  a  little 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  congregation,  quietly  seated  on 
the  trunk  of  a  fallen  tree.  His  presence,  however,  ap- 
peared to  put  a  quietus  for  the  time  being  on  the  ram- 
pant spirit  oi'  the  opposition,  especially  as  their  champion 
had  not  yet  made  hi-  appearance.  At.  Length  the  aged 
Scotchman  drove  up,  until  he  had  well  nigh  reached  the 
center  of  the  crowd.  He  was  a  well-set,  broad-shoul- 
dered, venerable-looking  man  of  about  sixty.  His 
features  were  strongly  marked,  and  indicated  a  due 
proportion  of  "iron"  as  well  as  intellect.  When  inter- 
rogated by  one  of  his  friend-  as  to  the  cause  of  hi-  delay, 
lie  promptly  replied  with  a  heavy  Scotch  brogue,  "I'm 
here  in  ample  time  to  gi'e  the  youngster  a  dose  from 
which  he'll  not  soon  recover."     The  parties  had  never 

1  See  the  bishop's  account  of  the  delate,  In  L>i  ro'a  "Bio- 

graphical Bketch  "  of  Cook,  p.  - i. 


KETHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  77 

goon   each    other,  and,  of  coarse,  had   no  personal   ae- 
juaintance.       When    introduce  on    woro, 

though   in  a  very  awkward  manner,  Cook  was  treated 
with  marked  incivility.     With  an  air  of  authority  the 
tchman    ascended   the    pulpit,  and.  without  prayer 

q>lanati<  tenced  a  furious  attack  on  Wesley 

and  Methodism  in   general     :  became  crreatly 

excited.  ,;  raved,  -ramped,  and  literally  foamed  at  the 
month.91  By  the  time  he  entered  on  the  support  of 
Calvinism,  properly  bo  called,  his  voic  ^ell-nigh 

•  .  In  about  two  hour-  he  brought  hi-  remark-  to 
a  close,  and  -at  down  greatly  exhausted,  Cook  then 
r<>-e  in  the  pulpit,  and  after  a  fervent  appeal  to  Al- 
mighty God,  tor  wisdom  and  help  to  defend  the  truth, 
he  commenced  under  much  embarrassment.  His  hand 
trembled,  hi-  tongue  faltered,  and  at  times  it  was  with 
difficulty  he  could  articulate  with  sufficient  clear1 
t<»  he  heard  on  the  outskirts  of  the  assembly.  He 
first  took  up,  and  refuted  with  great  power,  the  alle- 
gation- that  had  been  made  against  Wesley  and  Meth- 
"di.-m.  By  this  time  his  embarrassment  had  passed 
became  clear  and  distinct,  and,  withal, 
there   w  2      sweetness    in    hi-   delivery,  that 

ed  to  put  a  spell  on  the-  whole  assembly.     He  then 

red  hi-  solemn  protest  to  the  exceptionable  features 
of  the  Calvinistic  theology.     He  opposed  to  the  opin- 

oi'  reputedly  great  and  learned  nan,  on  which  his 
opponent  had  mainly  relied,  the  plain  and  positive 
teachings  of  Moses  and  the  prophets,  of  Christ  and  bis 
apostles;  and  in  conclusion  presented  an  outline  of 
the  scheme  of  human  salvation,  a-  taught   by  Wesley 

hi-  followers  in  Europe  and  America;  no!  in  it- 
th'-ory  only,  hut  in  its  experimental  and  practical  bear- 
ings.     At  an    early  period  in  hi-   discourse  lii-  Opponent 

i 


78  HISTORY    OF    THE 

rose  to  his  feet,  and  exclaimed,  with  all  the  voice  Le  had 
left,  "  Wolf !  wolf !  Wolf  in  sheep's  clothing  ! "  Cook, 
however,  had  become  so  perfectly  self-possessed,  and  so 
entirely  absorbed  in  his  subject,  that  this  rudeness  had 
no  effect  upon  him.  As  he  advanced  he  appeared  to 
acquire  additional  strength,  physical,  mental,  and  spirit- 
ual. The  fixed  attention  of  the  vast  multitude  seemed 
to  inspire  him  with  new  powers  of  argument  and  elo- 
quence. His  voice,  usually  soft  and  soothing,  rolled  on, 
in  thunder-tones,  over  the  concourse,  and  echoed  far 
away  in  the  depths  of  the  forest ;  while  his  countenance 
lighted  up,  kindled,  and  glowed,  as  if  he  were  newly 
commissioned  from  on  high  to  proclaim  the  salvation 
of  God.  The  Scotchman  could  endure  it  no  longer. 
He  again  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  shouted  at  the  top 
of  his  shattered  voice,  "  Follow  me,  follow  me,  and 
leave  the  babbler  to  himself."  Only  some  two  or 
three  obeyed  him.  Cook  was  too  much  absorbed  to 
pay  the  slightest  attention  to  the  ravings  or  flight  of 
his  opponent.  He  pressed  directly  forward  with  his 
argument,  dealing  out  at  every  step  the  most  start 
ling  demonstrations  against  error  in  faith  and  prac- 
tice. Long  before  the  mighty  effort  was  brought 
to  a  close  the  whole  assembly  were  on  their  feet,  all 
eagerly  listening,  and  unconsciously  pressing  toward  the 
speaker.  Every  eye  was  fixed,  every  ear  was  opened, 
and  every  heart  was  tremblingly  alive  to  the  import- 
ance of  the  theme.  When  he  took  his  seat  all  faces  were 
upturned,  and  for  the  most  part  bathed  in  tears.  The 
great  multitude  stood  for  some  time  like  statues,  no  one 
appearing  disposed  to  move,  utter  a  word,  or  leave  the 
place.  All  seemed  to  be  overwhelmed,  astonished,  and 
captivated.  At  last  the  spell-bound  multitude  retired, 
"  silent  as  a  funeral  procession."     "  It  is  well  known,* 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  79 

Adds   Cook's  biographer,  "that    this  controversy  was 

the  means  of  opening  to  her  ministry  a  'great  and 
effectual  door'  of  usefulness.  From  that  day  forward 
the  Methodist  Church,  in  all  that  mountain  range  of 
country,  has  been  rapidly  advancing  in  numbers  and 
influence.'1 

The  next  year  Daniel  Ilitt  had  charge  of  the  vast  dis- 
trict, a  Virginian,  who  began  to  travel  in  1790,  and 
became  distinguished,  throughout  the  Connection,  as  an 
effective  laborer,  the  traveling  companion  of  Asbury 
and  M'Kendree,  and  for  eight  years  the  Book  Agent  of 
the  Church  in  New  York  city;  and  who  died,  after  a 
ministry  of  thirty-five  years,  in  Washington  County, 
Md.,  in  1S25,  in  the  hope  of  the  gospel.  For  eighteen 
years  he  had  charge  of  districts  which  comprised 
more  territory  each  than  most  present  individual  Con- 
ferences. Like  Asbury,  M'Kendree,  Lee,  and  many  of 
the  early  leaders  of  Methodism,  he  remained  unmar 
ried,  through  life,  that  he  might  give  himself  entirely 
to  his  work.  He  was  exceedingly  particular  and  neat 
in  his  dress,  the  customary  Quakerlike  costume  of  his 
brethren,  the  single-breasted  coat,  broad-brimmed  hat, 
and  long  hair.  He  was  of  grave  if  not  stern  manners, 
a  good  counselor,  a  plain  but,  at  times,  very  powerful 
preacher,  and  inflexibly  decided  in  his  opinions,  not  to 
say  prejudices. 

James  Quinn,  to  whom  we  have  been  already  in- 
debted for  many  historical  reminiscences  of  this  region, 
appears  for  the  first  time  on  the  li-t  of  it<  appointments 
in  1799.  He  was  born  in  it  (in  Washington  County) 
in  1775,  and  lived  to  be  \t<  most  venerable  repre- 
sentative of  his  Church.  \\)<  family  early  moved  to 
Fayette  County,  where  they  heard  the  first  Methodist 
itinerants   who    crossed    the    Alleghanies,   and    became 


80  HISTORY    OF    THE 

their  disciples.  It  was  not  till  the  eleventh  ^  ear  of  his 
age  that  young  Quinn  heard  a  sermon;  he  had  tLen  the 
great  privilege  of  hearing  the  saintly  Peter  Moriarty.* 
In  his  thirteenth  year  he  witnessed  the  second  Confer- 
ence beyond  the  Alleghanies,  at  ITniontown,  Pa.9  He 
was  converted,  and  joined  the  Methodists  in  1792,  under 
the  ministry  of  Daniel  Fidler  and  James  Coleman, 
whom  we  have  already  met  in  far  off  fields  of  labor. 
He  was  immediately  pressed  into  active  service  in  the 
Church,  and  in  1799  was  received  on  probation  by  the 
Baltimore  Conference,  and  appointed  to  Greenfield  Cir- 
cuit, which  extended  into  three  counties.  Before  the 
year  ended  he  was  tossed  about  on  at  least  three  similar 
circuits.  Thus  began  his  long  and  faithful  career,  in 
which  we  shall  often  meet  him  again,  for  his  life,  during 
more  than  half  a  century,  was  almost  a  history  of  West- 
ern Methodism.  More  than  half  a  century  after  he 
began  his  ministry  he  stood  in  a  Conference  in  Ohio, 
and  could  say,  "And  now  here  I  am,  'a  reed  shaken 
with  the  wind,'  a  feeble  old  man,  trembling  as  I  lean 
upon  the  top  of  my  staff;  but  where  am  I?  In  the 
midst  of  a  Conference  of  ministers,  near  one  hundred 
and  fifty  in  number,  most  of  whom  have  been  twice 
born  since  the  time  of  which  I  speak.  Among  them 
are  the  sons,  the  grandsons,  and  great-grandsons  of 
those  who  kindly  received  me,  and  to  whom  I  minis- 
tered in  their  humble  dwellings.  No  doubt  I  have 
taken  some  of  these  ministers  in  my  arms,  and  dedicated 
them  to  God  in  holy  baptism ;  and  on  some  of  them  I 
have  laid  my  hand  in  consecrating  them  to  the  sacred 

9  Sketch  of  the  Life,  etc.,  of  James  Quinn,  by  John  F.  Wright,  p.  18. 
Cincinnati,  1851. 

3  Not  the  first,  as  the  biographer  of  Quinn  supposes.  See  vol.  ii, 
p.  353. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  81 

office  and  work  of  the  ministry.  O!  why  should  my 
heart  yield  to  fear?  The  Lord  of  hosts  is  with  us,  the 
God  of  Jacob  is  yet  our  help." 

As  a  preacher  he  was  very  instructive,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  exceedingly  powerful;  when,  himself  "over- 
whelmed with  his  subject,  manifestly  endued  with 
power  from  on  high,  and  a  sacred  unction  and  divine 
influence  accompanying  every  sentence,  the  enchained 
multitude  stood  in  solemn  awe,  till  finally  the  awful 
silence  was  broken  by  a  sudden  outburst  of  the  groans 
and  cries  of  sinners,  and  joyful  acclamations  of  Chris- 
tians from  all  parts  of  the  densely  crowded  congre- 
gation/' 

There  was  a  deep  vein  of  poetry  in  his  nature.  He 
loved  the  great  bards,  and  his  sermons  abounded  in  fine 
citations  from  them.  His  manners  showed  a  singular 
blending  of  dignity  and  amenity,  the  truest  style  of  the 
real  gentlemen ;  solemnity  and  pathos  characterized 
him  in  his  religious  exercises ;  his  form  was  manly, 
nearly  six  feet  in  height,  and  well  proportioned ;  his 
forehead  prominent  and  broad ;  his  eyes  dark,  deeply- 
and  shaded  by  heavy  brows. 

Lasley  Matthews  was  also  a  pioneer  itinerant  of  these 
times,  an  Irishman,  and  a  papist,  who  had  served  in 
the  Revolutionary  war.  While  in  camp,  he  was  asso- 
ciated with  Cliieuvrant.  who  himself  had  been  a  papist, 
but  who  now  read  to  his  comrade  a  smad  Bible  which 
he  carried  in  his  pocket,  and  thus  led  him  to  a  religious 
Both  became  zealous  preachers  and  founders  i 
the  Church  in  the  West.  We  have  met  Cliieuvrant 
repeatedly,  and  -ecu  him  last  preaching  in  moccasins, 
and  pursuing  with  his  rifle  the  murderous  Indians  on 
the  Monongahela,  a  brave  man  a-  well  a-  a  devoted  evan- 
gelist.    Matthews  began  to  travel  in  17tt0,  and  preached 


82  HISTORY    OF    THE 

during  twenty-seven  years,  mostly  in  the  hardest  parts 
of  the  work.  After  doing  chivalric  service  he  was 
crowned  with  a  fitting  victory.  He  died  in  1813,  on 
his  way  to  meet  his  brethren  in  Conference.  "  When," 
wrote  one  of  his  friends,  "he  could  no  longer  articu- 
late, by  putting  my  ear  to  his  lips,  I  could  hear  him 
attempting  to  say,  'Glory!  Praise  him!  My  Jesus 
come  ! ' " 4 

Thornton  Fleming  had  charge  of  the  district  in  1801. 
Born  in  Virginia  in  1764,  he  joined  the  Methodists  in 
about  his  twentieth  year,  and  the  itinerancy  in  his 
twenty-fourth  year,  and  continued  to  labor  with  his 
might  through  a  ministry  of  more  than  fifty-seven 
years ;  part  of  the  time  in  Virginia,  on  some  of  its  most 
mountainous  circuits ;  part  as  presiding  elder  among  the 
Tioga  and  Wyoming  Mountains  and  New  York  interioi 
lakes,  where  we  have  already  met  him  ;  but  most  of  the 
time  in  the  ultra- Alleghany  region  of  Pennsylvania, 
where  he  did  much  to  found  the  Pittsburgh  and  Erie 
Conferences,  and  was  one  of  the  first  members  of  the 
former.  For  fifteen  years  he  filled  the  laborious  office 
of  presiding  elder.  He  was  to  suffer  much,  and  perish 
at  last,  by  a  cancer  in  his  left  eye,  but  to  die  in  the 
assured  hope  of  the  gospel,  the  oldest  member  of  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference,  a  man  "  of  rare  endowments  " 
and  distinguished  usefulness.5 

Asa  Shinn  now  also  appears  in  the  Redstone  Circuit, 
a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  historic  importance  in  the 
Church,  who  will  claim  our  attention  in  some  future 
and  momentous  events.  We  have  already  seen  him 
struggling,  in  the  western  woods,  for  intellectual  and 
moral  improvement,  under  the  aid  of  Quinn,  and  begin- 
ning to  preach  "before  he  had  ever  seen  a  meeting- 
«  Minutes  of  1813.  »  Minutes  of  1847. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUHC1I.  83 

noose  or  a  pulpit.*'6  He  began  to  itinerate  in  18U0,  on 
Pittsburgh  Circuit,  though  he  was  not  received  in  the 
Conference  till  the  next  year.7  He  was  a  pioneer  of 
Methodism  in  many  regions,  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Virginia,  and  Kentucky,  suffering  much  from  miasmatic 
fere  re,  aud  mobs.  In  his  later  ministry  he  occupied 
prominent  appointments  in  the  Eastern  states.  He 
wielded  a  strong  and  sharp  pen,  and  became  a  champion 
of  the  secession  which  led  to  the  organization  of  the 
Methodist  Protestant  Church.  Four  times  he  suffered 
attacks  of  mental  derangement,  and  died  in  an  insane 
asylum  in  1853.  He  published  several  works,  of  no 
ordinary  ability:  in  1813,  "An  Essay  on  the  Plan  of 
Salvation;"  in  1820,  a  treatise  on  "The  Benevolence 
and  Rectitude  of  the  Supreme  Being;"  in  1824  he  com- 
menced his  numerous  and  spirited  articles  on  Methodist 
"  reform"'  in  the  "  Mutual  Rights,"  a  periodical  of  Bal- 
timore, lie  was,  at  least  in  his  latter  years,  a  robust, 
corpulent  man,  with  an  expressive  eye,  an  ample  fore- 
head, large  mouth,  pale  complexion,  black  hair,  and 
richly  mellow  voice ;  his  intellect  was  of  the  highest 
order  found  among  the  strong  but  uneducated  men  of 
the  Methodist  ministry  of  his  times.  As  a  preacher  he 
was  pre-eminently  able  and  powerful;  logical,  clear, 
and  full  of  suasive  force.  "Among  all  the  sons  of  men, 
I  never  found  one  superior  to  him  in  ministerial  qualifi- 
cations,*' write-  one  who  knew  him  during  forty  years.8 
He  had  no  imagination,  no  poetical  ornamentation;  his 
j  ower  arose  solely  from  concentrated  thought  and  moral 
feeling.  Throughout  the  remainder  of  the  present  period 
be  did  brave  service  for  the  Church  on  Redstone,  Che- 
uango,  Kocklioeking,  and  Guyandotte  Circuits. 

With  such  men  were  associated,  through  more  or  less 
•  Vol.  ii,  p.  343L     7  Bprague,  p.  ■<  wn,  I).  D. 


84  HISTORY    OF    THE 

of  this  period,  Robert  Manly,  Jesse  Stoneman,  James 
Hunter,  Joseph  Shane,  Joseph  Chieuvrant,  Thomas 
Daughaday,  Thomas  Budd,  Shadrach  Bostwick,  and 
others,  some  of  whom  did  notable  service,  to  be  here- 
after recorded.  By  1804  they  had  extended  the  Red- 
stone District  (now  called  after  the  Monongahela)  far 
and  wide;  it  reached  into  the  Erie  country,  the  wilds 
of  Ohio  and  Western  Virginia,  and  embraced  nine  vast 
circuits,  over  which  fourteen  itinerants  were  heralding 
the  gospel  and  organizing  Churches. 

In  penetrating  into  the  more  northern  region,  now 
the  vigorous  Erie  Conference,  Methodism  had  its  usual 
frontier  struggles.  In  1798  a  family  by  the  name  of 
Roberts  settled  in  Chenango ;  about  the  same  time  two 
Irish  local  preachers,  Jacob  Gurwell  and  Thomas  M'Clel- 
land,  ("very  respectable  preachers,"9)  began  to  labor 
among  the  settlers,  proclaiming  the  word  in  their  cabins 
and  in  the  open  air  under  trees.  They  formed  a  class 
this  year,  and  appointed  a  youth,  Robert  R.  Roberts, 
its  leader;  he  thus  became  the  first  leader  of  the  first 
class  in  the  Erie  Conference,  and  was  destined  to  be- 
come one  of  the  most  effective  evangelists  and  bishops  of 
the  Church  which  had  found  him  in  these  remote  woods. 

He  was  born  in  Frederick  County,  Md.,  in  1778.10  In 
1785  the  family  emigrated  over  the  mountains  to  ihe 
Ligonier  Valley,  Westmoreland  County,  Pa.  There 
they  lived,  in  the  woods,  for  some  years,  without  other 
religious  means  than  their  domestic  Bible.  When  young 
Roberts  was  about  ten  years  old,  Jacob  Lurton,  Lasley 
Matthews,  and  James  O.  Cull  reached  this  settlement, 

»  History  of  Methodism  in  the  Erie  Annual  Conference,  etc.  By 
Samuel  Gregg,  vol.  i,  p.  28.     New  York,  1865. 

>o  Life  of  Bishop  Roberts.  By  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  Elliott,  p.  13.  New 
York.  1853. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  85 

and  preached  to  them  the  doctrines  of  Methodimi  Cull 
was  a  "son  of  thunder,"  and  under  one  of  his  sermons 
both  Roberts  and  his  mother  were  deeply  affected.  Sub- 
sequently he  heard  the  voice  of  his  sister  in  secret 
prayer,  and  his  heart  was  more  deeply  stirred.  It  was 
not  long  before  the  entire  family  joined  the  Church. 
Young  Roberts  was  now  a  stalwart  youth,  wearing,  says 
his  biographer,  the  common  backwoods  costume:  the 
broad-rimmed,  low-crowned,  white-wool  hat,  the  hunt- 
ing shirt  of  tow  linen,  buckskin  breeches,  and  moccasin 
shoes.  lie  read  assiduously  the  books  of  Wesley  and 
Fletcher.  His  home  was  the  Methodist  place  of  wor- 
ship, the  class-meetings  were  held,  and  the  itinerants 
entertained  there,  and  from  them  he  obtained  advant- 
ages which  he  prized  through  life. 

In  1795  he  went  to  Chenango,  now  Mercer  County, 
which  he  thoroughly  traversed  and  examined,  carry- 
ing his  food  on  his  back  in  a  knapsack,  and  sleeping 
under  the  trees;  and  in  1797,  accompanied  by  others, 
he  settled  there.  He  suffered  much  in  this  new  loca- 
tion, and  lived  mostly  by  hunting;  but  before  the  close 
of  the  next  year  he  had  around  him  the  whole  of 
his  family,  as  also  other  settlers,  and  soon  Methodism 
was  successfully  planted  among  them  by  Gurwell  and 
M'Clelland,  its  little  class  being  under  his  own  leader- 
ship. About  1  BOO  Fleming  gave  him  license  to  exhort ; 
but  his  almo-t  morbid  diffidence  kept  him  from  using 
it ;  the  next  year  Quinn  called  upon  him  often  "  to 
speak  to  the  people,''  which  he  did  with  trembling,  but 
with  succe>s.  In  1802  he  was  preaching,  and  the  same 
year  was  received  cm  probation  by  the  Baltimore  Con- 
ference, and  sent  to  Carlisle  Circuit,  under  the  pre- 
siding eldership  of  Wilson  Lee.  Here  his  work  was 
Bsive,  and  before  the   year  closed   he  had  suffered 


86  HISTORY    OF    THE 

stacks  of  small-pox  and  measles,  and  lost  two  horses 
His  subsequent  labors  were  mostly  in  westward  circuits 
in  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania,  including  the  Erie  and 
Pittsburgh  regions ;  but  his  commanding  talents  led  to 
his  removal  to  the  East,  where  he  filled  important  ap- 
pointments in  the  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia  Confer- 
ences. While  presiding  elder  of  Schuylkill  District, 
including  Philadelphia,  a  session  of  the  Philadelphia 
Conference  occurred  at  which  no  bishop  was  present. 
A  pro  tempore  president  must  be  elected,  in  such  a  case, 
by  ballot  from  the  presiding  elders.  Roberts,  though 
youngest  of  them  all,  was  chosen.  He  presided  with 
such  manifest  ability  and  dignity  that  the  Conference 
and  other  preachers,  visitors,  on  their  way  to  the  General 
Conference,  where  the  episcopate  was  to  be  reinforced, 
decided  to  propose  him  for  that  high  function.  He  was 
elected,  and  thus  passed,  in  sixteen  years,  from  the 
humble  position  of  a  young  backwoods  itinerant  to  the 
highest  office  of  the  ministry.  "He  possessed,"  says 
one  of  the  most  competent  judges,  "  by  nature  the  ele- 
ments of  an  orator:  an  imposing  person,  a  clear  and 
logical  mind,  a  ready  utterance,  a  full-toned,  melodious 
voice ;  and  when  to  all  these  were  added  an  ardent  love 
of  souls,  and  an  unction  from  above,  he  of  course  became 
a  powerful  preacher.  He  did  not  aim,  however,  at  dis- 
play, but  at  usefulness,  and  therefore  commanded  the 
more  respect  and  confidence  as  an  able  minister  of  the 
New  Testament."11 

When  he  first  presented  himself  in  the  Baltimore 
Conference  he  had  traveled  thither,  from  the  western 
wilds,  with  bread  and  pro -vender  in  his  saddle-bags 
and  with  one  dollar  in  his  pocket ;  but  his  supe- 
rior character  immediately  impressed  Asbury  and  the 
11  Bishop  Morris. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  87 

assembled  preachers.  His  episcopal  appointment  was 
providential.  The  great  field  of  Methodism  was  in  the 
West.  lie  was  a  child  of  the  wilderness;  he  had  been 
educated  in  its  hardy  habits;  his  rugged  frame  and 
characteristic  qualities  all  designated  him  as  a  great 
evangelist  Tor  the  great  West.  There  he  had  built 
his  log-cabin,  and  dwelt  comparatively  out  of  sight  of 
civilized  man,  tilling  the  earth  in  summer,  and  hunting 
the  bear,  the  deer,  and  the  raccoon  in  winter.  He  be- 
came one  of  the  most  expert  huntsmen  in  his  day,  and, 
in  after  life,  often  surprised  veteran  marksmen,  on  the 
far  frontier,  by  the  deadly  certainty  of  his  fire.  The 
entire  winter  had  he  spent  at  his  solitary  cabin,  twenty 
miles  away  from  any  human  habitation,  and  cheered 
only  by  the  faithful  company  of  his  favorite  sister,  who 
prepared  his  repasts  of  wild  meat. 

The  refinements  of  the  Atlantic  cities  could  not  re- 
press the  ruling  passion  of  his  youth — it  followed  him 
through  life  and  was  strong  even  in  death ;  he  lived  a 
circuit  preacher  as  he  had  a  "  settler,"  and  a  bishop  as 
he  had  a  circuit  preacher,  in  a  log-cabin;  and  died  in  a 
Log-cabin.  Xo  sooner  had  he  been  elected  a  bishop 
than  he  fixed  his  episcopal  residence  in  the  old  cabin  at 
Chenango  ;  and  his  next  removal  was  to  Indiana,  then 
the  far  West,  where  his  episcopal  palace  was  a  log-cabin 
built  by  his  own  Lands,  and  his  furniture  rude  fabrica- 
tion- from  the  forest  wood,  made  with  such  tools  as  he 
had  carried  in  his  emigrant  wa<jon.  The  first  meal  of 
the  bishop  and  his  family  in  his  new  abode  was  of 
roasted  potatoes  only,  and  it  was  begun  and  ended  with 
hearty  thanksgiving.  Here  he  lived  in  the  true  simplicity 
of  frontier  life,  toiling,  at  his  occasional  leisure,  in  the 
fields.  The  allowance  for  his  family  expenses,  '••  -ides 
two  hundred   per  annum   for  quarterage,  was,  during 


88  HISTORY    OF    THE 

most  of  his  episcopal  career,  from  two  hundred  to  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  per  annum ;  at  least  this  was 
the  case  till  1836. 

Simple  and  severe  as  this  western  life  was,  it  was 
legitimate  to  the  character  and  position  of  Roberts ;  it 
comported  with  the  new  field,  the  great  diocese  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  into  which  he  was  thrust.  There 
was  in  it  a  compatibility  with  the  genius  of  the  country, 
with  the  circumstances  of  time  and  place.  Such  was 
the  life  for  such  a  field ;  and  Roberts  was  the  man  for 
both  such  a  field  and  such  a  life. 

Naturally  cheerful  and  amiable,  his  piety  was  never 
gloomy,  though  seldom  ecstatic.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  agreeable  of  companions;  he  could  calmly  en- 
dure afflictions,  and  compassionately  forgive  offenses; 
ne  was  fitted  for  domestic  life  and  permanent  friend- 
ships. As  is  natural  with  such  a  disposition,  he  was 
generous  and  liberal.  Those  who  knew  well  his 
private  affairs  have  estimated  that  his  pecuniary  con- 
tributions, during  his  ministerial  life,  amounted  to 
more  than  all  his  receipts  from  the  Church  for  domestic 
expenses.  He  was  especially  liberal  to  literary  institu- 
tions. He  prized  learning  from  a  sense  of  his  own 
need  of  it,  having  had  but  about  three  months'  instruc- 
tion after  his  seventh  year.  On  an  episcopal  visit- 
ation to  New  Orleans  he  found  the  brethren  attempt- 
ing, with  few  resources,  to  erect  a  church;  he  sold 
his  horse,  and,  giving  them  all  it  brought,  a  hundred 
dollars,  made  his  way  with  many  difficulties  to  Nash- 
ville, where  his  friends  provided  him  with  another  and 
funds  with  which  to  finish  his  journey.  While  at  home, 
in  the  periods  between  his  episcopal  tours,  he  worked 
hard  in  the  fields  that  he  might  have  the  means  of 
indulging  this  propensity  of  his   generous  mind.     He 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    OHUBCH.  89 

^ras  as  whole-hearted  in  his  ministerial  labors.  Accord- 
ing to  his  routes,  the  last  year  he  lived,  he  must  have 
traveled  between  five  and  six  thousand,  miles,  visiting 
some  half  dozen  states,  and  nearly  an  equal  number  of 
Indian  nations. 

As  a  preacher  he  was  always  interesting,  and  fre- 
quently eloquent,  though  his  passions  never  ha<l  undue 
play  in  the  pulpit.  A  thoroughly  systematie  arrange- 
ment of  his  subject,  readiness  of  thought,  fluent  and 
generally  correct  diction,  and  a  facile  yet  dignified 
manner,  were  his  characteristics  in  the  desk.  His  large 
person — corpulent,  and  nearly  six  feet  in  height,  his 
strongly-marked  features,  elevated  forehead,  and  man- 
ners of  extreme  simplicity  and  cordiality,  gave  to  his 
presence  the  air  of  a  superior  man — one  to  be  remem 
bered,  revered,  and  loved. 

It  is  certainly  no  small  tribute  to  his  character  to  say, 
that  its  greatest  apparent  defect  was  the  excess  of  a 
very  amiable  quality — he  was  constitutionally  diffident. 
In  his  earlier  life  this  disposition  rendered  him  painfully 
modest,  and  throughout  his  career  it  deterred,  him  from 
many  bold  and.  energetic  measures  which  his  position 
and  abilities  justified,  and  which  might  have  been  of 
wide  influence  on  the  Church.  He  often  referred  face- 
tiously to  instances  of  his  early  embarrassment.  For  a 
long  time  after  his  appointment  as  class-leader  among 
his  rustic  neighbors,  he  could  not  assume  courage 
enough  to  address  them  individually,  and  he  had  actu- 
ally to  be  superseded  by  another  leader  till  he  conquered 
thia  timidity.  In  his  first  att<  nipt  at  public  exhortation, 
he  suddenly  sat  down  appalled  at  the  intent  look  of  a 
d  man  whose  favorable  interest  he  took  for  disappro- 
bation. At  another  time,  when  he  was  expected  to 
exhort,  he  v.  retire   in  agony  and 


90  HISTORY    OF    THE 

conceal  himself  in  a  barn.  In  the  third  attempt  he  pro 
ceeded  some  time  with  good  effect,  but,  fearing  he  had 
made  a  blunder,  stopped  short  in  confusion. 

In  after  years  this  extreme  diffidence  became  a  sub 
dued  modesty,  not  interfering  with  his  ordinary  duties, 
but  deterring  him  from  most  novel  or  experimental 
plans,  however  hopeful,  and  leading  often  to  ludicrous 
mistakes  among  persons  who  did  not  know  him.  When 
stopping  in  his  travels  among  strangers,  he  usually 
assumed  no  other  pretensions  than  those  of  a  private 
Christian ;  and  frequently  it  was  not  till  the  family- 
worship  revealed  his  spirit  and  talents  that  his  minis- 
terial character  was  supposed.  Under  such  circum- 
stances he  has  sometimes  attended  class-meeting  with 
his  host,  and  received  warm  and  pointed  exhortations 
from  zealous  leaders.18 

i2  On  returning  to  the  West,  after  a  General  Conference,  he  once 
applied  at  the  house  of  a  Methodist  family  to  which  he  had  been  re- 
commended for  entertainment.  He  was  as  usual  humble  in  dress,  and 
dusty  and  weary.  The  family,  taking  him  to  be  a  rustic  traveler,  per- 
mitted him  to  put  up  and  feed  his  horse,  and  take  his  seat  in  the  sit- 
ting-room. Supper  was  over,  and  no  one  took  the  trouble  to  inquire 
if  he  had  taken  any  on  the  way.  The  preacher  of  the  circuit  was  stop- 
ping at  the  same  house;  he  was  young,  frivolous,  and  foppish,  an 
occasional  though  very  rare  example  among  Methodist  preachers, 
and  spent  the  evening  in  gay  conversation  with  the  daughters  oi 
the  family,  alluding  occasionally  and  contemptuously  to  the  "old 
man,"  who  sat  silently  in  the  corner.  The  good  bishop,  after  sit- 
ting a  long  time,  with  no  other  attention  than  these  allusions,  re- 
spectfully requested  to  be  shown  to  bed.  The  chamber  was  over 
the  sitting-room,  and,  while  on  his  knees  praying  with  paternal  feeling 
for  the  faithless  young  preacher,  he  still  heard  the  gay  jest  and  mde 
laugh.  At  last  the  family  retired  without  domestic  worship.  The 
young  preacher  slept  in  the  same  room  with  the  bishop.  "Well,  old 
man,"  said  he  as  he  got  into  bed,  " are  you  asleep  yet ? "  "I  am  not, 
sir,"  replied  the  bishop.  "Where  have  you  come  from?"  "From 
east  of  the  mountains."  "From  east  of  the  mountains,  aye— what 
place  ?  "  "  Baltimore,  sir."  "  Baltimore,  aye— the  seat  of  our  General 
Conference— did  you  hear  anything  about  it?  We  expect  Bishop  Ro- 
berts to  stop  here  on  his  way  home."     "Yes,  sir,"  replied  the  bishop, 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  91 

Methodism,  beginning  within  the  Erie  Conference  by 
the  formation  of  Roberts's  little  class  in  Chenango,  soon 
spread  out  to  other  settlements.  Emigration  poured  into 
the  country,  bringing  many  Methodist  families  from  the 
East.  Settlements  sprung  up  rapidly  on  each  side  of 
the  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  line.  By  1801  the  Pitts- 
burgh District,  as  this  whole  region  was  now  called, 
took  in  all  the  present  Erie,  Pittsburgh,  and  Western 
Virginia  Conferences.  It  reported  two  northern  circuits 
within  the  present  Erie  Conference,  the  Erie  and  Che- 
nango, traveled  by  Quinn  and  Shane.  Quinn's  whole 
field  had  not  yet  a  single  society  or  class.  He  went 
forth  to  organize  it.  Asbury,  in  appointing  him  to  it 
at  the  Conference,  called  him  forward  and,  pressing 
biin  to  his  bosom,  gave  him  a  Discipline,  and  said,  "  Go, 

humbly,  "  it  ended  before  I  left."  "  Did  you  ever  see  Bisbop  Roberts  ?  " 
"  Yes,  sir,  often  ;  we  left  Baltimore  together."  "  You  left  Baltimore 
together?"  "Yes,  sir."  "What's  your  name,  my  old  friend?" 
"Roberts,  sir."  "Roberts!  Roberts!  Excuse  me,  sir,  are  you  re- 
lated to  the  bishop?"  "They  usually  call  me  Bishop  Roberts,  sir." 
"Bishop  Roberts!  Bishop  Roberts!  are  you  Bishop  Roberts,  sir?" 
said  the  young  man,  leaping  out  of  bed,  and  trembling  with  agitation. 
Embarrassed  and  confounded  he  implored  the  good  man's  pardon,  in- 
sisted on  calling  up  the  family,  and  seemed  willing  to  do  anything  to 
redeem  himself.  The  bishop  gave  him  an  affectionate  admonition, 
which  he  promised  with  tears  never  to  forget.  The  venerable  and  coin- 
raate  man  knew  the  frivolity  of  youth ;  giving  him  much  parental 
advice,  and  praying  with  him,  he  would  not  allow  the  family  to  be 
called,  though  he  had  eaten  nothing  since  breakfast.  The  next  morn- 
ing, after  praying  again  with  the  young  man,  he  left  before  the  family 
had  risen,  that  he  might  save  them  a  mortifying  explanation.  This 
fact  v.  as  a  salutary  lesson  to  the  young  itinerant;  at  the  next  Confer- 
ence he  called  upon  the  bisbop,  a  renewed  man;  he  wept  again  as  he 
acknowledged  his  error,  and  became  a  useful  and  eminent  minister. 
Bishop  Roberts  often  alluded  to  the  incident,  but,  through  a  commend- 
able kindness,  would  never  tell  the  name  of  the  young  preacher.  The 
story  haa  been  extensively  circulated,  with  some  exaggeration,  and 
with  Bishop  George  substituted  for  Bishop  Roberts.  Bisbop  Roberts 
tta  real  subject    The  fact  I  ranted,  but  his  biographer 

Ba\>,  '•  that  it  was  a  real  occurrence,  hi  certain." 

D— 7  * 


92  HISTORY    OF    THE 

my  son,  and  make  full  proof  of  thy  ministry."  His 
whole  journey  was  performed  on  horseback,  along  steep 
and  rugged  mountain  paths.  He  entered  upon  his  work 
with  true  apostolic  zeal,  and  soon  was  enabled  to  see 
"streams  breaking  forth  in  the  wilderness."  His  cii- 
cuit,  when  formed,  contained  twenty  appointments, 
requiring  him  to  travel  four  hundred  miles  every 
four  weeks.  The  first  class  he  organized  was  near  a 
place  called  Lexington,  in  Springfield  township,  Erie 
County,  Pa.  A  settler  says,  "  I  heard  him  preach 
at  the  house  of  Stephen  Maxwell,  a  cabin  twelve  by 
seventeen  feet,  no  floor  in  it,  a  black  ash  bark  roof, 
the  room  overhung  with  pumpkins  prepared  to  dry." 
Such  were  many  of  his  preaching  places.  Quinn  says : 
"I  suffered  a  little  in  the  flesh  this  year.  Breadstuff 
was  very  scarce,  and  what  flesh  we  ate  was  chiefly 
taken  from  the  woods  with  the  rifle ;  but  about  mid- 
summer we  got  plenty  of  potatoes.  Once,  however, 
having  been  several  days  without  bread  or  meat,  I  in- 
dulged, when  very  hungry,  in  eating  too  freely  of  half- 
ripe  blackberries,  which  caused  an  attack  of  bilious 
colic,  that  held  me  two  days.  Upon  the  whole,  I  look 
back  with  as  much  pleasure  upon  the  labors  and  suffer- 
ings of  that  year  as  any  of  the  many  years  I  have  been 
employed  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord/' 

Some  half  dozen  classes  were  formed  on  his  circuit 
before  the  ecclesiastic  year  closed,  and  some  sixty-five 
members  reported  ;  while  the  Chenango  Circuit  returned 
about  sixty  members :  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  Meth- 
odists in  all,  the  nucleus  of  a  Conference  which  now 
(18G6)  reports  nearly  thirty  thousand,  and  has  covered 
the  country  with  religious  provisions. 

The  next  year  Asa  Shinn  labored  with  success  through 
these  regions,  and  Henry  Shewel,  a  local  preacher  from 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  93 

New  Jersey,  who  had  lived  some  time  in  Redstone, 
penetrated  (the  last  forty  miles  through  an  unbroken 
wilderness,  without  a  settler,)  to  Deerfield,  Portage 
County,  Ohio,  and  extended  the  Church  thither,  so  that 
in  1 803  we  find  Deerfield  reported  as  the  title  of  a  new 
circuit.  By  1804  there  were  three  circuits,  with  three 
preachers,  besides  Fleming,  the  presiding  elder,  in  these 
northern  regions,  and  the  membership  had  increased  to 
more  than  five  hundred.  The  whole  district  reported 
nine  circuits,  fourteen  preachers,  and  more  than  three 
thousand  three  hundred  (3,327)  members. 

Meanwhile,  farther  southward,  within  Virginia,  the 
denomination  was  pressing  forward  energetically.  Reese 
Wolf,  a  local  preacher,  and  Beauchamp,  whom  we 
lately  left  in  Xew  England,  had  arrived  on  the  banks 
of  the  little  Kanawha,  and  founded  it  there.  Quinn 
was  sent  in  1802  to  a  large  field,  formed  by  the  union 
of  Berkeley  and  Winchester  Circuits.  He  has  left  a 
sketch  of  his  work,  written  in  his  old  age,  but  full  of 
the  zest  of  his  youthful  itinerancy.  "  x\t  Whitehouse, 
on  Bull  skin,  Bartholomew  Smith's,  father  of  old  Henry 
Smith,  of  Baltimore  Conference  ;  Scurf's,  near  Battle- 
town;  Green's,  near  Paris,  or  the  Blue  Ridge;  North- 
ern's, in  Sniger's  Gap ;  Weekly's ;  Leehewtown,  on 
Shenandoah  ;  North's  ;  we  had  classes  at  all  save 
one;  and  some  revival  influence,  and  refreshing  from 
the  presence  of  the  Lord,  in  the  course  of  the  year. 
This  last  section  was  a  very  rough  portion  of  the  circuit, 
as  we  had  to  cross  the  Blue  Ridge  and  Shenandoah  River 
each  twice.  But  we  minded  not  the  toil,  fin*  in  those 
days  Methodist  preachers  were  wont  to  find  their  way 
into  every  nook  and  coiner  where  there  were  human 
beings,  provided  they  could  find  an  open  door,  and 
procure  an  audience,  be  the  fare  rough  or  smooth.     But 


94  HISTORY    OF    THE 

we  have  not  got  round  yet.  We  "have  still  another  im- 
portant section,  and  this  will  bring  us  to  Stevensburgh, 
White  Post,  Middletown,  the  Cove  among  the  mount- 
ains, on  Cedar  Creek,  Spackelford's  Meeting-house,  and 
Sadler's.  At  all  these  stands  we  had  societies.  That 
at  Spackelford's,  however,  was  very  feeble.  I  think 
only  four  in  number.  At  Stevensburgh  we  were  fa- 
vored with  a  most  blessed  revival;  scores  of  precious 
souls  were  brought  from  darkness  to  light,  and  from 
the  power  of  Satan  to  God.  Out  of  this  revival  several 
preachers  came  forth — a  White,  Talbot,  Pool,  Brison,  and 
others.  I  have  met  some  of  the  subjects  and  witnesses 
of  that  revival  in  the  West,  where  we  have  talked  and 
thought  of  the  subject  till  our  hearts  have  burned  within 
us.  In  Winchester  we  had  a  charming  set  of  young 
men,  to  whom  I  became  much  united  in  spirit,  and  with 
them  I  often  took  sweet  counsel.  Pry  had  laid  down 
the  carpenter's  tools,  and  gone  forth  at  the  Master's 
bidding  to  labor  in  the  vineyard.  His  brother  Joseph 
was  still  pushing  the  plane,  and  Michael  boot  and  shoe- 
making.  Joseph  Carson  was  making  shoes,  and  Simon 
Lauk  making  guns.  They  all  believed  that  they  heard 
the  Master  say,  '  Go  ye  also  into  my  vineyard;'  and 
they  were  using  all  diligence  and  exerting  all  their 
energies  to  get  ready.  I  often  visited  their  shops ; 
found  on  the  bench,  or  near  at  hand,  the  Bible,  a  gram- 
mar, logic,  some  book  on  science  or  theology — proofs, 
this,  that  they  gave  attention  to  reading — no  filthiness, 
foolish  talking  or  jesting,  but  such  as  was  good  to  the 
use  of  edifying.  They  were  young  men,  but  bober* 
minded ;  and  yet  they  had  a  cheerfulness  and  buoy- 
ancy of  spirit  that  sweetened  society,  and  made  the 
heart  bettor.  O,  brothers  of  my  heart,  how  I  loved 
them  !      As   might  have  been  expected,  they  all    be- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  95 

came  useful,  yea,  able  ministers  of  the  New  Testa 
ment.  T  readied  my  circuit  in  poor  plight,  for  I  had 
traveled  on  Muskingum,  Hocking,  and  Kanawha  in 
1800,  and  on  Erie  in  1801  ;  and,  as  there  were  no  mis- 
sionary funds  in  those  days,  my  purse  was  empty,  and 
my  clothes  threadbare.  Nevertheless  I  was  not  ashamed, 
for  I  believed  I  had  been  sent  by  Him  who  sent  out  his 
first  missionaries  without  purse  or  scrip,  while  he  him- 
self had  not  where  to  lay  his  head,  and  they  suffered 
from  hunger,  cold,  and  nakedness.  Permit  me  now  to 
mention  my  visit  to  the  sick  room  and  dying  bed  of 
General  Daniel  Morgan,  that  terrible  thunder-bolt  of 
war.  The  thunder  and  din  of  war  had  passed,  and 
the  hero  had  retired  to  wear  in  private  life  the  fading 
laurels  accorded  to  him  by  a  nation.  He  reached  out 
his  hand,  and  looking  me  full  in  the  face,  said,  '  O,  sir, 
I  am  glad  you  have  come  to  see  me,  and  T  hope  you 
will  pray  for  me,  for  I  am  a  great  sinner,  about  to  die, 
and  I  feel  that  T  am  not  prepared  to  meet  my  God.'  I 
ventured  to  show  him  the  way  of  salvation  by  faith  in 
Him  who  suffered  the  jnst  for  the  unjust,  that  he  might 
bring  us  to  God,  then  prayed  with  him.  He  wept 
much,  and  I  left  him  bathed  in  tears.  Never  did  I  see 
tears  flow  more  copiously  from  man,  woman,  or  child. 
Ah,  thought  I,  how  little  can  the  honors  or  riches  of  the 
world  do  for  poor  man  when  death  comes  !  There  was 
some  ground  of  hope  in  his  death.  I  now  took  my  plan 
of  thirty-eight  appointments,  besides  six  or  eight  ap- 
pointments at  night,  for  the  special  benefit  of  the  peopk 
of  color,  and  went  on,  from  day  to  day,  with  fear  and 
trembling,  feeling  a  deep  sense  of  my  great  inadequacy. 
The  territory  of  three  large  counties  was  embraced  in 
our  bounds,  namely.  Frederick,  Berkeley,  and  Jefferson, 
and  we  must   have   rode   near  four   hundred   miles  in 


96  HISTORY    OF    THE 

reaching  all  the  appointments,  as  they  stood  arranged 
en  the  plan.  The  local  preachers  helped  much,  and  our 
excellent  host  of  young  men  of  Winchester  sallied  forth 
like  so  many  young  Davids,  each  with  his  gospel  sling 
and  pouch  of  pebbles  from  the  brook.  In  the  mean 
time  along  came  Asbury,  giving  us,  as  he  passed 
through  our  circuit,  six  sermons,  many  exhortations, 
and  prayer  almost  without  ceasing ;  and  commending 
us  to  the  grace  of  God,  on  he  went  to  Holston.  Now 
the  gospel  car  began  to  move  gloriously,  increasing  in 
velocity  to  the  end  of  the  year,  and  we  wound  up  with 
the  addition  of  three  hundred  souls  to  the  Church.  O, 
glory  !  my  soul  gets  happy  while  I  think  and  write." 

Pushing  still  farther  westward  and  southward,  we  are 
again  among  the  evangelists  of  the  Holston  Mountains. 
These  heights  are  as  watch-towers  to  them,  and  we  find 
them,  during  these  years,  now  descending  to  the  west- 
ward, now  to  the  eastward, "  sounding  the  alarm  "  through 
all  the  wilderness,  from  the  Blue  Ridge  to  the  farthest 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  frontier.  Already  the  gospel 
was  proclaimed,  by  Methodist  itinerants,  through  most 
of  the  hither  mountain  valleys,  those  grand  and  fertile 
domains  which  stretch  away,  between  their  rocky  bar- 
riers, from  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania  through  Vir- 
ginia into  North  Carolina.  Our  present  period  opens 
with  M'Kendree  on  a  district  which  extends  through 
Bottetourt  County  over  the  ridges  and  valleys  to  the 
Greenbrier,  a  stream  that  flows  into  the  great  Kanawha, 
and  thence  into  the  Ohio;  and  another  district,  under 
Philip  Bruce,  sweeping,  in  like  manner,  far  westward 
over  the  more  northward  counties. 

The  year  1796  is  memorable  as  the  epoch  of  the  formal 
designation  of  the  Western  field  by  the  General  Confer- 
ence, as  "  The  Western  Conference,"  taking  in  Kentucky 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CJIL'KCH.  97 

and  Tennessee,  for  years  the  only  one  in  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi  In  the  Ilolston  region  itself  we  finJ 
now,  in  the  outset,  four  immense  circuits,  under  the 
presiding  eldership  o!l  Jonathan  Bird,  and  traveled  by 
six  itinerant^,  Burke  being  chief  among  them.  Beyond 
them  lies  the  vast  opening  westward  field,  all  yet  com- 
prehended in  one  district,  which  is  traveled  by  Kobler, 
who  has  six  circuits  and  ten  preachers  under  his  care. 

Among  his  itinerants  is  Benjamin  Lakin,  for  many 
years  an  endeared  name  in  the  TVest.  He  w^as  born  in 
Montgomery  County,  Md.,  in  1707,  but,  infected,  with 
the  emigrant  spirit  of  the  times,  his  family  moved,  in 
his  childhood,  to  the  Redstone  frontier  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  stopped  not  till  they  were  located  far  among  the 
canebrakes  of  Kentucky.  Here  the  itinerants  discov- 
ered them,  and  young  Lakin  became  an  ardent  Method- 
ist His  hardy  habits  were  congenial  with  the  itinerancy, 
and  Poythre.-s  had  him  out  traveling  as  early  as  the 
winter  of  1704.  The  next  year  he  was  on  Greenville 
Circuit,  the  next  on  Danville,  and  in  1797  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  full  membership  in  the  Conference,  ordained, 
a  fid  sent  to  Lexington.  The  following  year,  having 
married,  he  was  compelled  to  locate.  In  three  years  he 
h  id  provided  for  his  family,  and  re-entered  the  itiner- 
aocy,  and  thenceforward  performed  incredible  labors 
and  travels  in  Kentucky  and  Ohio,  till  1818,  when  his 
l.roken  health  required  him  to  be  placed  on  the  super- 
numerary list,  but  with  scarcely  less  devotion  to  his 
ministerial  work.  The  Minutes  say  of  him  that  in  1819 
his  health  had  so  failed  that  he  was  wholly  unable  to 
perform  the  work  of  an  effective  traveling  preacher,  and 
he  was  placed  on  the  superannuated  list  This  relation 
he  sustained  till  he  was  removed  from  labor  and  Bum  r- 
rog  to  lii-  reward  in  heaven.     "For  many  years  i4  had 


98  HISTORY    OF    THE 

been  his  custom  to  have  an  appointment  to  pi  each 
every  Sabbath,  mil  ess  a  quarterly  or  some  other  special 
meeting  interfered,  and  at  such  meetings  he  helped  us 
much  in  the  Lord.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  superan- 
nuated minister  who  labored  so  much,  or  was  more 
useful.  He  had  three  appointments  out  at  the  time  of 
his  death."13 

He  was  a  giant  amid  those  great  revivals  which 
prevailed  in  the  West  about  the  beginning  of  this 
century.  One  of  his  contemporaries  says,  that  "  in  the 
greatest  excitement  the  clear  and  penetrating  voice 
of  Lakin  might  be  heard  amid  the  din  and  roar  of  the 
Lord's  battle,  directing  the  wounded  to  the  Lamb  of 
God,  who  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  Day  and 
night  he  was  upon  the  watchtower,  and  in  the  class  and 
praying  circles  his  place  was  never  empty,  leading  the 
blind  by  the  right  way,  carrying  the  lambs  in  his  bosom, 
urging  on  the  laggard  professor,  and  warning  the  sinner 
in  tones  of  thunder  to  flee  the  wrath  to  come.  While 
he  was  in  the  relation  of  a  wornout  preacher  he  never 
had  a  dumb  Sabbath,  always  having  his  appointments 
ahead,  except  when  quarterly  or  camp  meetings  would 
intervene.  He  was  always  on  hand  at  these,  and  would 
preach  and  labor  with  all  his  remaining  strength.  Great 
success  attended  his  efforts,  and  he  was  universally  ac- 
cepted and  beloved  as  a  minister  of  Jesus.  'Fathei 
Lakin'  did  not  suffer  his  calm,  benignant  features,  in 
his  last  days,  to  be  wrinkled  with  a  sour  godliness. 
There  was  no  whining  about  everything  going  wrong 
in  the  Church  and  among  the  preachers.  He  had  a 
contempt  for  croakers,  and  would  look  up  and  thank 
God  for  a  good  conservative  progress  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  Methodism.  Quiet  and  peacefu1  and  glorious, 
»s  Minutes  of  L849. 


M  ETH0DIS1     K  PISCO  TA  I.    CB  r  RCH. 

as  when  the  descending  bod  throws  his  last  rays  on  a 
receding  world,  tinging  the  trees  and  mountains  with 
his  mellow  light,  <li<l  this  venerable  servant  of  the  cross 
-  clown  to  the  grave.  He  preached  his  last,  sermon 
in  M'Kendree  Chapel,  Brown  County,  Ohio,  on  the  28th 
day  of  January.  I  B48.M  In  about  a  week  afterward, 
visiting  a  Christian  family,  he  sank  down  to  the  floor, 
and  quietly  expired  in  the  eighty-second  year  of  his  age, 
and  the  fifty-fourth  of  his  ministry.  He  was  of  ordinary 
height,  but  of  "spare  habit."'  excessively  given  to  fa-t- 
ing or  abstinence,  of  singularly  tender  conscience ;  but, 
M  though  sedate,  there  was  a  spice  of  quiet  humor  in  his 
conversation."  He  was  diligent  in  his  self-culture,  not- 
withstanding his  local  inconveniences  for  study,  reading 
much,  making  abstracts  of  his  books  and  outlines  of 
ions,  and  writing  some  of  them  entirely.  "His 
appearance,  in  advanced  life,  was  that  of  a  cheerful, 
placid  old  man,  and  such  indeed  he  was."15 

In  1798  Bird  and  Poythress  lead,  as  presiding  elders, 
the  Hol>ton  corps,  though  there  is  yet  but  one  district  ; 
and  we  meet  again  the  tireless  Valentine  Cook  at  the 
head  of  the  solitary  district  which  comprises  the  more 
western  field,  with  its  six  long  circuits  and  seven 
itinerant-. 

Before  the  close  of  the  century  Cook  was  broken 
down  in  health.  He  married,  and  settled  in  Kentucky, 
where  he  took  charge  of  the  Bethel  Seminary,  in  Jessa- 
mine County,  the  first  Methodist  school  of  the  West 
lb  subsequently  conducted  a  Bimilar  Institution  at  Bar- 
rodsburgh,  and,  finally,  located  in  Logan  County,  where 
he  lived  on  a  small  farm,  about  three  mile-  from  Russell- 
ville.    II  I  himself  to  education,  and  \  med 

i*  Fii,       igkel 

is  Pr  :  -    flnittanu  in  Bpragne,  : 


1U0  HISTORY    OF    THE 

one  of  the  best  instructors  in  the  West.  Not  a  few 
eminent  professional  men  were  trained  by  him.  Mean- 
while he  preached  powerfully,  not  merely  in  his  owr 
vicinity,  but  often  in  extensive  excursions  through  the 
state,  and  at  quarterly  meetings  and  camp-meetings. 
He  was  venerated  as  a  saint  for  his  singular  piety  ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  no  man  of  his  day  wielded, 
in  the  West,  greater  power  in  the  pulpit.  "Prayer- 
meetings,"  says  his  biographer,  "  were  established, 
classes  revived,  societies  raised  up,  and  new  Churches 
organized,  wherever  his  labors  were  employed,  or  his 
influence  felt.  There  are  hundreds,  and  perliaps  thou- 
sands, still  living  throughout  the  great  West,  who, 
under  God,  are  indebted  to  the  instrumentality  of 
Valentine  Cook  for  all  their  hopes  of  immortality  and 
eternal  life." 

The  people  believed  that,  like  the  original  apostles, 
he  "spoke  from  inspiration,"  and  that  by  his  prayers 
miracles  were  wrought  among  the  sick.  Marvels  are 
told  of  the  power  of  his  word.  A  young  preacher,  who 
had  never  seen  him,  learning  that  he  was  expected  to 
preach  at  a  private  house,  rode  some  miles  from  his  own 
circuit  to  hear  the  noted  evangelist.  On  arriving  he 
inquired  if  Cook  was  to  preach  that  evening.  "  Yes," 
was  the  reply ;  "  he  has  just  walked  out  into  the  grove." 
His  habits  of  devotion  were  proverbial,  and  as  it  was 
the  custom  among  Methodist  preachers  of  that  day  to 
prepare  for  preaching  by  hours  of  reading,  meditation, 
and  prayer  in  the  woods,  it  was  not  difficult  to  conjec- 
ture the  cause  of  his  retirement.  "  Anxious  to  see  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  men  of  his  age,  I  took,"  says 
the  visitor,  "  a  position  on  the  portico"  that  looks  out 
upon  the  beautiful  grove  into  which  he  had  retired. 
At  the  approach  of  the  venerable  stranger,  a  sense  of 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         101 

awe  cniiic  over  me.  There  walked  God's  devoted  am- 
bassador, lacking-  only  the  Beer's  gift  to  make  him  an 
awful  prophet.  My  thoughts  and  feelings  were  so  con- 
centrated upon  him  that  I  could  scarcely  speak.  Valen- 
tine Cook  was  slightly  above  the  medium  height  and 
size.  There  was  no  symmetry  in  his  figure;  his  limbs, 
being  disproportionately  long,  seemed  more  like  awk- 
ward appendages  than  well-fitted  parts  of  a  perfect 
whole.  He  was  what  is  called  '  stoop-shouldered '  to 
such  a  degree,  that  his  long  neck  projected  from  be- 
tween his  shoulders  almost  at  a  rio;ht  anode  with  the 
perpendicular  of  his  chest.  His  head,  which  was  of 
peculiar  formation,  being  much  longer  than  usual  from 
the  crown  to  the  point  of  the  chin,  seemed  rather  sus- 
pended to  than  supported  by  the  neck.  A  remarkably 
low  forehead,  small,  deeply-sunken  hazel  eyes,  a  prom- 
inent Roman  nose,  large  mouth,  thin  lips,  a  dark,  sallow 
complexion,  coarse  black  hair,  with  here  and  there  a 
thread  of  gray,  formed  a  tout  ensemble  in  which  nature 
seemed  to  have  paid  no  regard  to  order,  strength,  or 
beauty.  His  singularly  eccentric  appearance,  his 
homely  apparel,  and  humble  attitude,  as  he  slowly 
approached  the  house,  are  imprinted  upon  my  mind  as 
vividly  now  as  when,  for  the  first  time,  I  looked  upon 
him  as  I  sat  in  that  little  portico.     He  laid  his  hand 

ly  upon  my  head,  and  in  the  most  solemn  accents 
■aid,  'Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  God  will  give 
thee  a  crown  of  life.'  He  uttered  not  another  word ; 
these  were  enough.  They  seemed,  as  they  fell  from  bis 
lips,  to  possess  a  weight  of  meaning  which  I  had  never 
seen  in  them  before,  and  made  an  impression  upon  my 
mind  which  thirty-six  years  of  toil  and  affliction  have 
oot  been  able  to  obliterate.     As  the  shadows  of  the 

*    deepened,  the   people   from   town   and   country 


102  HISTORY    OF    THE 

began  to  assemble,  and,  though,  the  rain  was  descend- 
ing in  torrents,  every  apartment  of  the  house  was  soon 
filled  to  overflowing.  The  hour  for  preaching  arrived, 
he  took  his  position  in  the  entry  by  a  small  table,  upon 
which  lay  the  'old  family  Bible.'  Resting  his  hand 
reverently  on  that  blessed  volume,  he  commenced  re- 
peating, in  a  somewhat  indistinct  undertone,  the  affect- 
ing hymn  beginning  with 

'  I  saw  one  hanging  on  a  tree 

In  agony  and  blood; 
He  fixed  his  languid  eyes  on  me, 

As  near  the  cross  I  stood.' 

Before  he  reached  the  last  stanza  his  voice  had  become 
perfectly  clear,  and  so  pathetic  and  impressive,  that  many 
faces  were  suffused  with  tears.  After  reading  the  hymn, 
he  raised  the  tune  himself,  and  the  audience  united  with 
him  in  singing.  The  prayer  which  followed  was  simple, 
solemn,  and  affecting.  On  rising  from  his  knees  he  straight- 
ened himself  up,  and  after  looking  round  upon  the  con- 
gregation a  few  moments,  without  opening  the  Bible,  on 
which  his  right  hand  again  rested,  he  announced  as  his 
text,  Mai.  iv,  1 :  'For, behold,  the  day  cometh.'  I  occu- 
pied a  seat  immediately  before  him.  I  knew  full  well 
that  I  was  in  the  presence  of  a  great  as  well  as  good  man. 
Every  word  that  fell  from  his  lips,  and  every  expression 
of  his  countenance,  proclaimed  to  all,  as  I  verily  thought, 
the  transcendent  goodness  of  his  heart,  the  purity  of 
his  motives,  and  the  elevated  character  of  his  purposes. 
Man's  responsibility  to  God  was  the  leading  thought. 
In  the  commencement  he  dwelt  at  some  length  and  with 
great  effect  on  the  all-pervading  presence  of  Him  with 
whom  we  have  to  do.  Never  until  then  had  I  been  so 
deeply  impressed  vvdth  the  fact  that  God  was  all  arouna 


METHODIST     E/ISCOPAL    CHURCH.  103 

me,  above  me,  beneath  me,  within  me.  The  sinfulness 
ci'sin  and  its  dreadful  consequences  were  portrayed  in 
language  and  imagery  most  powerful  and  startling.  I 
felt  persuaded  that  no  unconverted  sinner,  not  wholly 
given  up  to  hardness  of  heart,  could  listen  to  that  dis- 
course without  exclaiming  in  the  bitterness  of  his  anguish, 
'  The  arrows  of  the  Almighty  stick  fast  within  me,  and 
the  terrors  of  God  do  set  themselves  up  in  array  against 
me.'  I  could  distinctly  hear  the  partially  suppressed 
groans  and  prayers  that  rose  from  different  parts  of  the 
house.  In  conclusion,  the  great  remedial  scheme  was 
brought  to  view.  The  ability  and  willingness  of  Al- 
mighty God,  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ  and  him  cruci- 
fied, to  save,  to  save  now,  to  the  uttermost  and  forever, 
were  presented  in  such  strains  of  simple,  fervent,  loving, 
melting  eloquence,  that  the  entire  assembly  was  roused, 
excited,  and  overwhelmed.  Some  were  pale  with  fear, 
others  radiant  with  hope.  Prayer  and  praises,  cries 
and  songs,  were  commingled.  While  the  wail  of 
awakened  sinners  was  heard  in  various  parts  of  the 
house,  from  other  directions  came  the  shouts  of  rejoic- 
ing saints.  Christ,  by  his  Holy  Spirit,  had  spoken 
through  his  minister  to  the  understandings  and  hearts 
of  the  people.  The  midnight  watch  had  come  and  gone 
before  the  people  could  be  induced  to  leave  the  strangely 
consecrated  place.  Such  a  sermon  as  that,  for  clearness, 
directness,  power,  and  effect,  I  have  never  heard.  I 
left  at  an  early  hour  the  next  morning  for  a  distant 
appointment,  rejoicing  in  God  for  the  privilege  of  hav- 
ing seen  and  heard  such  a  man  as  Valentine  Cook.  I 
never  saw  him  more."  16 

Such  was  this  rare  man,  his  appearance,  his  spirit,  and 
bis  preaching.     His   habitual   absorption,  in   prayer  or 
»*  "Biographical  Sketch,"  p.  S4. 


104:  HISTOB.Y    OF    THE 

study,  gave  him  an  air  of  singularity  or  eccentricity. 
He  was  absent-minded  in  company.  In  his  devotional 
retirement  in  the  woods,  he  would  sometimes  forget  his 
congregations.  He  has  been  known  to  walk  home  from 
his  appointments,  leaving  bis  horse  behind,  unconscious 
of  the  fact  till  reminded  of  it  by  his  family.  He  loved 
music  excessively,  and  felt  that  the  old  Methodist 
singing  was  one  of  the  best  preparations  for  powerful 
sermons.  The  young  people  of  his  neighborhood,  who 
loved  him  much,  gratified  his  taste  by  frequently  sere- 
nading him  at  night.  In  1819  he  was  impressed  with 
the  thought  that  his  end  was  near.  He  wished  once 
more  to  preach  in  some  of  his  old  fields,  and  "  return 
home  and  arrange  his  affairs  for  an  early  departure  to 
his  inheritance  above."  He  went  preaching  througl 
Kentucky,  parts  of  Ohio,  and  his  old  battle  grounds 
in  Pennsylvania.  Passing  on  to  Pittsburgh,  New 
York,  Philadelphia,  he  reached  Baltimore,  where  he 
spent  some  time  preaching  "  to  vast  crowds,"  and 
"scores  and  hundreds  were  converted  through  his  in- 
strumentality." He  returned  through  the  Greenbrier 
country  of  the  Alleghanies,  visiting  his  early  friends, 
kneeling  at  the  graves  of  his  parents,  giving  his  final 
warnings  to  the  people,  and  re-entered  his  home  in 
Kentucky  singing  a  triumphant  hymn.  He  settled  his 
temporal  affairs,  and  in  the  ensuing  year  died,  uttering, 
as  his  last  words,  "  When  I  think  of  Jesus,  and  of  living 
with  him  forever,  I  am  so  filled  with  the  love  of  God, 
that  I  scarcely  know  whether  I  am  in  the  body  or  out 
of  the  body." 

Good  Henry  Smith,  whom  we  have  so  often  met,  was 
still  braving  the  frontier  trials  of  Kentucky.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  period  he  was  on  Danville  Circuit, 
where  he  was  aided  much  by  James  M'Cull,  once  a  stal- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         105 

wart  itinerant,  now  broken  down,  and  located,  but  still 
faithful.  "I  never,"  writes  Smith,  "saw  a  man  more 
anxious  to  speak  for  God  than  my  friend  M'Cull ;  but 
this  was  out  of  the  question.  I,  however,  on  two  occa- 
sions saw  him  mount  the  stand,  and  look  round  on  the 
congregation,  the  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  and,  in 
a  half  whisper,  say  a  few  words;  and  although  half  the 
congregation  could  not  understand  what  he  said,  yet 
it  ran  like  lire  from  heart  to  heart,  till  all  were  melted 
to  tears.  On  one  of  these  occasions  I  was  deeply 
affected ;  it  seemed  as  if  my  heart  would  burst.  I  cer- 
tainly ought  to  have  profited  more  by  beholding  such  a 
spectacle,  and  hearing  the  lectures  he  sometimes  gave 
me ;  for  he  was  a  charming,  sweet-spirited  man,  and  a 
humble  Christian.  I  loved  these  people  very  much ; 
but,  thank  the  Lord,  I  never  labored  among  a  people 
that  I  did  not  love,  and  take  a  deep  interest  in  their 
welfare  :  generally,  the  last  I  was  with  I  loved  the  most. 
My  last  quarterly  meeting  was  held  at  Jessamine  meet- 
ing house,  April  22  and  23,  1797;  and  as  our  annual 
Conference  was  held  at  Bethel  this  year,  we  had  all  the 
Holston  preachers  at  our  meeting.  Bishop  Asbury  was 
not  with  us,  in  consequence  of  affliction ;  and  having 
the  wilderness  to  go  through,  he  was  advised  not  to 
venture ;  but  the  great  Head  of  the  Church  was  wTith 
us,  and  it  was  a  time  of  harmony  and  love  among  our- 
selves, and  of  great  power  in  the  congregation.  Our 
bu>incss  was  done  in  peace ;  for  there  was  no  jealousy 
among  our  little  band  of  brothers;  no  scrambling  for 
the  best  circuits;  (we  had  no  stations;)  if  we  got  a  bad 
circuit,  we  went  to  it  with  a  willing  mind,  determined, 
if  possible,  to  make  it  better;  if  we  got  a  good  circuit, 
we  went  with  a  cheerful  heart,  resolved  to  -how  onr- 
r'liy  "1'  a  good  place.     From  this  Conference 


106  HISTORY    OF    THE 

1  went  to  Salt  River  again ;  the  Lord  gave  me  favor  in 
the  eyes  of  these  people,  and  also  added  seals  to  my 
ministry.  In  this  circuit  I  got  acquainted  with  the  widow 
of  Colonel  Harden.  He  was  a  devoted  Methodist.  He 
was  sent  out,  in  company  with  another  man,  with  a  flag 
of  truce  to  the  Indians ;  but  the  savage  wretches  killed 
them  both.  This  good  sister  was  sorrowful,  yet  always 
rejoicing;  often  shouting  aloud,  and  expressing  the 
strongest  confidence  of  meeting  her  beloved  husband  in 
heaven.  Barnabas  M'Henry,  one  of  the  early  preachers, 
married  into  this  worthy  family  :  he  was  a  man  of  strong 
mind,  and  able  in  argument,  and  stood  upon  the  walls  of 
our  Zion,  and  defended  her  bulwarks  when  she  was 
assailed  by  an  enemy." 

In  1798  he  was  under  Poythress  and  Bird  in  Green 
Circuit,  within  the  Holston  District,  and  the  next  year 
reached  Ohio,  where  he  meets  again  his  old  friend, 
M'Cormick,  and  whither  we  shall  soon  follow  him. 

In  1799  the  whole  field,  Holston,  Kentucky,  and  Ten- 
nessee, and  a  circuit  in  Ohio,  was  one  immense  district 
under  Poythress,  with  an  apostolic  band  of  twelve 
preachers,  including  such  men  as  Burke,  Kobler,  Smith, 
and  Sale. 

John  Sale  was  one  of  the  most  heroic  evangelists  and 
founders  of  western  Methodism,  though  only  five  lines 
are  given  to  his  memory  in  the  official  Minutes,  and  we 
know  not  the  precise  place  of  his  birth.  He  was  born 
somewhere  in  Virginia  in  1769,11  and,  about  his  twenty- 
first  year,  became  a  zealous  Methodist.  In  1796  he 
joined  the  itinerant  evangelists,  and  was  sent  to  Swanino 
Circuit,  "  in  the  wilds  of  Virginia,  where  he  had  his 
courage  and  fidelity  tested  in  breasting  the  dangers  and 
hardships  of  a  pioneer  preacher.  His  next  circuit  was  the 
"  Minutes  of  1828;  Fin'  ey's  Sketches,  p.  185. 


;  HODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         107 

Mattamuskeet,  in  the  lowlands  of  the  state.  Added  to 
the  accessary  hardships  connected  with  traveling  this 
circuit,  it  was  a  very  sickly  region,  and  much  dreaded  by 
the  itinerant ;  but  as  no  scenes  could  disgust  or  dangers 
deter  the  preachers  of  those  days,  wherever,  n  the  prov- 
idence of  God,  their  lot  was  cast,  Sale  went,  in  the 
name  of  his  Master,  and  entered  upon  the  work  assigned 
him,  ready  to  die."18  From  these  preparatory  trials  he 
he  went,  in  1799,  across  the  mountains  to  Holston  Cir- 
cuit. During  four  years  he  labored  iudefatigably  in  the 
Holston  Mountains  and  among  the  Kentucky  settle- 
ments. In  1803  he  pa>sed  into  the  Xorthwestern  Terri- 
tory, and  now,  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  more, 
he  alternates  between  Ohio  and  Kentucky,  a  successful 
circuit  preacher,  a  commanding  presiding  elder.  Worn 
out  by  his  ministerial  labors,  he  fell  at  last  in  his  work, 
in  1827,  crowned  with  the  veneration  of  the  Church, 
and  exclaiming,  "My  last  battle  is  fought,  and  the 
victory  sure!  halleluiah!"  One  of  the  most  eminent 
Methodist  citizens  of  the  country,  who  long  enjoyed 
and  prized  the  friendship  of  this  humble  but  true  evan- 
gelist, has  recorded  an  estimate  of  him,  and  says : 
"  He  was  a  man  of  fine  presence,  of  erect  and  manly 
form,  and  of  great  personal  dignity.  He  was  naturally 
of  a  social  turn,  and  had  excellent  powers  of  conversa- 
tion, though  nothing  ever  fell  from  his  lips  that  even 
approached  to  levity.  I  was  always  struck  with  the  ex- 
cellent judgment  and  accurate  discrimination  which  he 
evinced  in  hi-  social  intercourse.  His  mind  could  not  bo 
baid  to  be  brilliant,  and  yet  he  sometimes  produced  a  very 
powerful  effect  by  his  preaching.  His  distinct  enuncia- 
tion, earnest  manner,  and  appropriate  and  well-digested 
thoughts,  always  secured  to  him  the  attention  of  his 

«  FInley.  p.  1^. 
D— 8 


l08  HISTORY    OF    TEE 

audience ;  but  I  have  sometimes  heard  him,  when,  rising 
with  the  dignity,  and  in  the  fullness,  of  his  subject,  he 
seemed  to  me  one  of  the  noblest  personifications  of  the  elo- 
quence of  the  pulpit.  His  words  were  never  hurried. 
Without  the  least  tendency  to  extravagance,  there  war 
still  a  luster  in  his  eye,  and  a  general  lighting  up  of  his 
features  that  revealed  the  workings  of  the  spirit  within. 
In  some  of  his  more  felicitous  efforts,  T  think  I  have  heard 
him  with  as  much  interest  as  I  have  heard  any  other  man. 
And  I  never  heard  him  without  being  deeply  impressed 
with  the  conviction  that,  among  all  the  men  known  to 
me  at  that  early  period,  I  should  have  selected  him  as  the 
man  to  fill  up,  under  all  circumstances,  the  measure  of  his 
duty.  He  was  an  eminently  useful  one,  and  he  adorned 
every  relation  that  he  sustained,  and  every  sphere  that 
he  occuj:>ied.  His  character  was  so  pure  that  every  one 
felt  that  it  was  formed  by  a  close  conformity  to  the 
Divine  Model."19 

"  Chief  Justice  M'Lean,  in  Sprague,  p.  267. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         109 


CHAPTEE  XX. 

MEHIODISM   IN  THE   WEST,   CONTINUED:   1796-1804. 

M'Kendree  takes  Charge  of  the  Western  Field  —  Poythress's  Decline 
and  Insanity—  Introduction  of  Camp-Meetings— Remarkable  Scenca 
at  them  —  Grenade  —  David  Young  —  Making  a  Circuit  —  The  South- 
west opens  — Tobias  Gibson  at  Natchez  — He  falls  a  Martyr  to  his 
Work  —  Recruits  for  the  Field  —  Learner  Blackmail  —  Methodism  in 
Ohio  —  M'Cormick  — Dimmitt  — Kobler  sent  to  Ohio  —  Hunt  and 
Smith  there  — The  Miami  and  Sciota  Circuits  — Advance  of  the 
Church  — Philip  Gatch  in  the  West  — Kobler  at  the  Grave  of  Gatch 
—  M'Cormick's  End  —  Sale  in  Ohio  —  Methodism  in  Cincinnati  — 
At  other  points  in  Ohio  —  Bostwick  in  the  Western  Reserve  —  Meth- 
odism enters  Indiana  and  Illinois  —  Benjamin  Young — Hardships 
there  — Methodism  in  Michigan —  Planted  at  Detroit  —  Asbury  in 
the  West  in  1797— Terrible  Trials  there  — lie  has  to  retreat  — Re- 
turns in  1500  — Conference  at  Bethel,  Ky.  —  Its  Academy  — The  First 
Camp-Meetings  —  Sufferings  on  the  route  Eastward  —  Returns  in 
1801 — Conference  in  Tennessee  —  Back  again  in  1802  —  Reposing 
on  the  Holston  Heights  —  Conference  at  Bethel  —  The  Bishop  in  a 
Storm  —  Reflections  on  his  Sufferings  —  Again  in  the  West  in  1803  — 
Conference  at  Cynthiana,  Ky.  — Early  Life  in  the  West  — Statistics. 

The  year  1300  was  signalized  in  western  Methodist  his- 
tory by  the  appearance  of  William  Al'Kendree  at  the 
head  of  the  pioneer  itinerants.  Poythress,  hitherto  its 
chief  representative  roan,  was  beginning  to  totter  in  both 
mind  and  body,  and  it  now  needed  an  able  commander. 
Poythress  has  often  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  always  as 
a  giant  among  his  greatest  compeers.  Few  of  the  early 
itinerants  did  more  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  Church 
both  east  and  west  of  the  Mountains.  lie  was  one  of 
the  most  zealous  laborers  for  its  educational  interests, 
and  fell  a  martyr  to  his  devotion  to  that  cause.  Tie 
was  the  chief  founder  of  the  first  Methodisl  seminary  in 

the  West — the  Bethel  Academy  in  Jessamine  County, 

a     * 


110 


HISTOKY    OF    THE 


Ky.  Its  edifice  was  a  large  brick  structure  of  two  stories, 
and  it  had  incurred  a  considerable  debt,  which  weighed 
down  his  noble  mind  till  it  sunk  in  ruins.  All  efforts 
of  himself,  Valentine  Cook,  and  other  co-laborers,  to  re- 
trieve the  institution  failed,  and  Poythress  lingered  a 
wreck  like  his  favorite  project.  At  the  session  of  the 
Western  Conference,  held  at  Bethel  in  1802,  an  intima- 
tion was  recorded  in  its  journals  of  his  "  critical  state  of 
unaccountability."  His  name  was  ordered  to  be  "  left  off 
the  General  Minutes ;"  but  the  Conference  expressed 
itself  as  "tenderly  concerned  for  his  support  and  wel- 
fare, and  therefore  resolved  that  his  name  shall  stand 
on  our  Journal;"  and  "further,  that  his  name  should  be 
perpetuated  on  the  Journal  of  this  Conference." l  Ac- 
cordingly his  name,  after  remaining  among  the  elders 
during  1802  and  1803,  but  nowhere  else,  disappears 
from  the  Minutes.2  This  fact,  together  with  a  hasty 
allusion  to  him  in  Asbury's  Journals,  as  late  as  1810, 
has  given  the  unfortunate  impression  that  he  apostatized. 
Asbury's  brief,  unqualified  allusions  to  other  men  are 
often  liable  to  such  misinterpretation.  Fortunately  for 
our  own  feelings,  as  well  as  for  the  reputation  of  this 
great  and  good  man,  a  living  witness  of  Asbury's  inter- 
view with  him  has  unvailed  the  mystery,  and  shed  a 
clear  though  saddened  light  on  his  grave,  after  doubt  if 
not  reproach  has  hung  for  half  a  century  over  his  mem- 
ory in  much  of  our  literature.  Henry  Boehm  was  the 
traveling  companion  of  Asbury  in  the  West  at  the  *ime 
of  Asbury's   unfortunate   record.      Boehm  says:      On 

1  See  Extracts  by  Bp.  Morris,  "  from  the  Journals  of  the  Western  Con- 
ference "  in  Western  Christ.  Advocate,  Jan.  8, 1851.  A  blank  stands  for 
Poythress's  name  in  these  extracts,  but  I  am  certain  that  I  do  not  mis- 
take it. 

a  Bangs  records  him  (Alphabetic  List)  as  "  located  "  in  1801,  but  erro 
ueoi  >ly ;  there  is  no  record  of  his  location  in  the  Minutes. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  Ill 

flmiday  we  visited  an  old  minister,  one  of  the  pioneers 
of  the  West,  and  the  bishop  makes  this  melancholy 
record.  I  nevei  read  it  without  pain:  'This  has  been 
an  awful  day  to  me.  I  visited  Francis  Poythress.  If 
thou  be  he;  but  O  how  fallen!'  Perhaps  no  record 
in  his  journals  has  been  so  little  understood  as  this,  and 
none  is  more  liable  to  be  misinterpreted.  Some  have 
supposed  that  he  had  fallen  like  wretched  apostates  who 
have  made  shipwreck  of  the  faith;  but  it  was  not  so, 
and  the  bishop  would  not  willingly  or  knowingly  have 
done  the  unfortunate  brother  injustice.  My  journal 
reads  thus:  'Monday  15,  we  went  with  Brother  Harris 
to  see  Francis  Poythress,  one  of  our  old  preachers.  He 
has  been  for  ten  years  in  a  state  of  insanity,  and  is  still 
in  a  distressed  state  of  mind.''  This  is  the  record  I  made 
over  fifty  years  ago,  and  it  was  italicised  as  the  reader 
now  sees  it.  Francis  Poythress  was  one  of  the  leaders 
in  our  Israel.  He  was  admitted  into  the  traveling  con- 
nection at  the  third  Conference,  held  in  1 770,  with  Free- 
born Garrettson,  Joseph  Hartley,  Nicholas  Watters, 
and  others.  He  was  a  pioneer  of  the  West.  In  1 790, 
John  Tunnel  dying,  Francis  Poythress  was  appointed 
elder  at  the  West,  having  five  large  circuits  on  his  dis- 
trict, and  on  them  were  Wilson  Lee,  James  Haw,  and 
Barnabas  M'Henry.  We  have  not  space  to  trace  his 
history.  His  excessive  labors  shattered  his  system,  and 
his  body  and  intellect  were  both  injured.  About  the 
year  1800  he  became  deranged,  and  a  gloom  settled 
down  upon  him  not  to  be  removed.  When  Asbury  saw 
him  he  was  shocked,  contrasting  his  former  look  with 
his  appearance  then.  He  was  then  living  with  his 
Bister,  twelve  miles  below  Lexington.  Bishop  Asbury 
never  saw  him  more;  death  soon  came  to  the  relief  ot 
poor  Francis  Poythress,  and  none  who  knew  him  doubt 


112  HISTORY    OF    THE 

that  he  is  among  the  clear  unclouded  intellects  of  the 
upper  and  better  world." 3 

His  old  friend,  Judge  Scott,  has  paid  a  befitting 
tribute  to  his  memory.  "Poythress,"  he  says,  "wai> 
grave  in  his  deportment  and  chaste  in  his  conversa- 
tion, constant  in  his  private  devotions  and  faithful 
in  the  discharge  of  his  ministerial  duties.  We  have 
no  recollection  of  his  having  ever  disappointed  a  con- 
gregation, unless  prevented  by  sickness  or  disease.  As 
often  as  practicable  he  visited  from  house  to  house, 
instructed  and  prayed  in  the  family.  He  was  un- 
wearied in  his  efforts  to  unite  the  traveling  and  local 
ministry  as  a  band  of  brothers,  so  that  their  united 
efforts  might  be  exerted  in  furthering  the  cause  of  God. 
As  the  weight  of  all  the  Churches  in  his  district 
rested  upon  him,  he  sensibly  felt  the  responsibility 
of  his  station,  and  put  forth  his  utmost  efforts  to  dis- 
charge, with  fidelity,  the  important  trusts  which  had 
been  confided  to  him.  The  education  of  the  rising  gen- 
eration he  deemed  to  be  intimately  connected  with  tne 
interests  of  the  Church,  and  the  result  of  that  conviction 
was  the  erection  of  Bethel  Academy.  He  was  about 
five  feet  eight  or  nine  inches  in  height,  and  heavily 
built.  His  muscles  were  large,  and  when  in  the  prime 
of  life,  he  was  a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  muscular 
strength.  He  dressed  plain  and  neat.  When  we  first 
saw  him,  we  suppose,  he  had  passed  his  sixtieth  year. 
His  muscles  were  quite  flaccid,  eyes  sunken  in  his  head, 
hair  gray,  turned  back,  hanging  down  on  his  shoulders; 
complexion  dark,  and  countenance  grave,  inclining  to 
melancholy.  His  step  was,  however,  firm,  and  his  general 
appearance  such  as  to  command  respect.  He  possessed 
high,  honorable  feelings,  and  a  deep  sense  of  moral  obli 
»  Boehm's  Reminiscences,  p.  323. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         113 

gation.  In  general,  he  was  an  excellent  disciplinarian. 
Among  the  eight  pioneers  of  Methodism  in  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  in  the  year  1788,  the  name  of  Francis  Poy- 
thress  stands  pre-eminent.  By  these  intrepid  heroes  of 
the  cross  the  foundation  of  Methodism  was  laid  in  those 
states,  on  which  others  have  since  built,  and  others  are 
now  building.  Their  names  ought  to  be  held  in  grate- 
ful remembrance  by  all  wdio  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
in  sincerity  and  truth ;  but  among  all,  we  are  inclined 
.0  the  opinion,  there  is  not  one  of*  them  to  whom  the 
members  of  our  Church,  in  those  states,  owe  a  greater 
debt  of  gratitude  than  to  Francis  Poythress."4 

We  have  seen  M'Kendree  tending  westward  for  some 
years  among  the  mountain  appointments  of  Western 
Virginia,  and  witnessed  his  departure  on  his  trans- 
montane  route  with  Asbury  and  Whatcoat,  without 
his  "  money,  books,  or  clothes."  They  passed  over  the 
mountains,  down  the  Holston  River,  into  Tennessee, 
into  the  valley  of  Church  Kiver,  where,  reaching  a 
"station"  on  the  outskirts  of  the  settlements,  they  com- 
bined with  other  travelers  to  form  a  company,  and,  on 
the  27th  of  September.  1800,  began  their  course  direct 
to  Kentucky.  Wearied  and  sick,  they  reached  Bethel 
Academy,  Jessamine  County,  and  there  held  the  Western 
Conference  in  the  first  week  of  October,  the  first  session 
of  that  body  of  which  there  remains  any  correct  record.5 
Ten  traveling  preachers  were  present,  including  Asbury 
and  ^vVhatenut ;  the  session  lasted  but  two  days;  two 
candidates  were  admitted  on  probation,  one  member 
located,  fourteen  local  and  four  traveling  preachers  were 
ordained.  Some  of  the  members  of  the  small  body 
lingered  Inn--  in  the  Church,  but  all  have  now  gone  to 
their  rest 

1  Fh  !  Kendree,  p  4.:. 


114  HISTORY    OF    THE 

After  the  session  Asbury,  Whatcoat,  anil  M'Kendree 
traveled  and  preached  together,  from  the  center  of  Ken- 
tucky to  Nashville,  in  Tennessee,  and  thence  to  Knox- 
ville,  where  they  parted,  M'Kendree  returning  to  his 
great  district,  which  comprised  thirteen  circuits,  over 
which  he  went  preaching  night  and  day  with  an  ardor 
befitting  so  grand  a  sphere,  and  such  sublime  results  as 
he  could  justly  anticipate  for  the  rising  commonwealths 
around  him,  whose  moral  foundations  Methodism  was 
now  effectively  laying.  An  extraordinary  religious  ex 
citement  spread  over  all  the  country.  It  was  largely 
attributable  to  the  introduction  of  camp-meetings  at  this 
time — a  provision  which,  however  questionable  in  dense 
communities,  seemed  providentially  suited  to  these 
sparsely  settled  regions.  In  the  latter  part  of  1799, 
John  and  William  Magee,  who  were  brothers,  the  first 
a  Methodist  local  preacher,  the  second  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  started  from  their  settlement  in  Tennessee  to 
make  a  preaching  tour  into  Kentucky.  Their  first  labors 
were  with  a  Presbyterian  Church  on  Red  River,  where 
remarkable  effects  attended  their  labors,  and  excited 
such  general  interest  that,  at  their  next  meeting,  on 
Muddy  River,  many  distant  families  came  with  wagons 
and  camped  in  the  woods.  This  was,  in  fact,  the  begin- 
ning of  religious  "  camp-meetings"  in  the  United  States.6 
The  co-operation  of  the  brothers,  though  of  different 
creeds,  presented  a  grateful  example  of  Christian  fellow- 
ship, and  the  settlers,  of  whatever  faith,  gladly  copied  it,  so 
that  the  earliest  camp-meetings  were  catholic  or  "  union 
meetings,"  composed  of  Presbyterians,  Methodists,  and 
nearly  every  sect  in  the  country.  They  soon  became 
general  through  all  the  Western  Territories,  and,  at  last, 

8  In  the  Moth.  Mag.  for  1821,  p.  189,  is  an  account  of  these  first  meet- 
ings, from  the  pen  of  John  M'Gee  himself. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         115 

throughout  the  nation  and  Upper  Canada.  Ten,  twenty, 
or  more  thousands  attended  them,  devoting  usually 
a  week  exclusively  to  religious  exercises,  living  in  tents 
or  booths,  which  were  arranged  in  circles  around  a  rude 
pulpit  or  platform,  and  were  illuminated  at  night  by 
torches  or  pine-knots,  and  governed  by  prescribed  rules 
and  a  temporary  police.  The  poetic  grandeur  of  the 
primitive  forest,  lit  up  at  night  by  the  stars  above  and 
the  torches  below,  resounding  with  hymns  which  seemed 
like  "the  voice  of  many  waters ;"  the  powerful  eloquence 
of  the  itinerants,  who  could  hardly  fail,  in  such  circum- 
stances, to  reach  their  maximum  ability ;  the  opportuni- 
ties of  social  greeting  afforded  by  such  assemblings  to 
the  dispersed  settlers ;  and,  above  all,  the  religious  en- 
thusiasm which  such  unwonted  and  protracted  exercises 
could  not  fail  to  produce,  rendered  the  camp-meeting 
immediately  a  favorite  occasion,  and  drew  the  people, 
as  in  armies,  from  all  distances  within  two  or  three  hund- 
red miles.  They  soon  bore  the  name  of  "  general  camp- 
meetings"  from  their  catholic  character,  as  combining 
all  sects.  As  they  were  Presbyterian  as  well  as,  or  even 
more  than  Methodist  in  their  origin,  Presbyterian  clergy- 
men were  generally  active  in  them.  A  great  one  was 
held  in  Cambridge,  seven  miles  from  Paris,  Ky.,  soon 
after  their  introduction,  which  produced  a  general  sen- 
sation; thousands  of  persons  were  present  from  all  parts 
of  the  state,  and  even  from  Ohio ;  it  continued  a  week. 
Hundreds  fell  to  the  earth  as  dead  men  under  the 
preaching.  At  another,  held  at  Cobbin  Creek,  Ky., 
twenty  thousand  were  present;  thousands  fell  as  slain  in 
hattle,7   and   the   religions   interest  of  the    whole   state 

7  The  number  tliat  fell  ut  this  meeting  was  reckoned  at  about  three 
thousand,  among  whom  were  severs]  Presbyterian  ministers,  who,  ac- 
cording to  their  own  confession,  liad  hitherto  possessed  only  a  specu- 
lative ku"\.  ligion.     Bangs's  Hist.,  ii,  p.  108. 


116  HISTORY    OF    THE 

seemed  to  be  quickened  by  its  results.  Astonishing 
effects  attended  another  on  Desher's  Creek,  near  Cum- 
berland River;  "the  people  fell  under  the  power  of  the 
word  like  corn  before  a  storm  of  wind."  A  young  man 
of  shattered  mind  and  body,  who  for  a  long  time  had 
wasted  to  a  shadow  by  religious  melancholy  and 
despair,  was  present ;  amid  the  falling  hosts  he  also 
sunk  down  to  the  ground,  but  rose  renewed  in  spirit 
and  health,  and  being  educated,  and  a  man  of  ardent 
and  poetic  nature,  became  one  of  the  most  effective 
itinerants  among  the  Holston  heights  and  the  settle- 
ments of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  The  name  of 
Grenade  is  still  remembered  among  the  elder  Meth- 
odist families  of  the  West.  His  revival  hymns  were 
once  familiar  through  most  of  their  circuits. 

M'Kendree,  as  he  passed  over  his  vast  district,  pro- 
moted these  meetings,  and  it  was  not  long  before  the 
Methodist  itinerants  were  thus  making  their  word  re- 
sound in  all  parts  of  the  state.  New  societies  were 
abundantly  organized,  and  the  Church  assumed  unpre- 
cedented vigor.  At  the  close  of  his  second  year  on  the 
district  seven  new  circuits  had  been  formed,  and  the  one 
district  was  divided  into  three.  The  mere  handful  of 
members,  scattered  here  and  there  in  the  settlements, 
now  numbered  at  least  eight  thousand,  having  increased 
more  than  five  thousand  in  the  last  two  years.  The  little 
Conference  of  twelve  members  had  more  than  doubled 
its  numbers.  No  small  part  of  the  impetus  which  had 
been  given  to  the  Western  work  was  through  the 
preaching  and  superior  wisdom  of  M'K\  ndree  as  the 
presiding  elder.8 

One  of  the  most  interesting  characters  in  Methodist 
biography  was  recorded  in  the  appointments  of  1802, 
s  Fry's  M'Kendree,  p.  6S. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CH  DKCH.  117 

Jacob  Young,  a  man  of  such  evangelical  simplicity  and 

purity,  such  good  sense-  in  counsel,  aud  perspicuity  and 

pertinence  in  speech,  so  entertaining  in  conversation, 
;iik1  of  such  cordiality  of  manners,  and  saintliness  of  char- 
acter, that  the  must  obstinate  opposers  and  most  fas- 
tidious critics  were  won  by  him,  notwithstanding  the 
faithfulness  of  his  admonitions,  and  some  obvious  defects 
made  the  more  obnoxious  to  criticism  by  the  peculiar 
recitative  tone  of  his  preaching.  He  survived  far  into 
our  day,  not  only  revered  by,  but  endeared  to  all  who 
knew  him,  by  the  peculiar  charm  of  his  character,  as 
well  as  by  his  long  and  faithful  public  services.  His 
simple  narrative  of  his  early  travels  and  labors  is  one  of 
the  most  entertaining  records  in  the  literature  of  the 
Church  ;  and  no  book  gives  us  more  striking  and  char- 
acteristic, though  transient,  glimpses  of  early  Western 
and  early  Methodist  life.9 

He  was  born  on  the  western  frontier  of  Pennsylvania, 
in  Alleghany  County,  in  1776.  His  childhood  was  beset 
with  Indian  perils,  and  he  grew  up  remarkable  for  act- 
ivity and  courage.  His  mind  seemed  to  take,  at  a  very 
early  age,  a  spontaneous  bias  toward  a  religious  life.  In 
his  fifteenth  year  he  removed,  with  his  family,  into 
Kentucky,  and  settled  on  its  frontier  in  Henry  County. 
When  he  was  about  twenty-one  years  of  age  the  Meth- 
odist itinerants  reached  his  neighborhood,  and  his  sen- 
sitive soul  was  soon  wrestling  with  the  problems  of 
life,  death,  and  eternity.  He  "  wept  bitterly '"  under 
the  preaching  of  young  Hunt,  one  of  the  earliest  mar- 
tyrs to  the  Western  itinerancy,  and  a  pioneer  in  Ohio 
as  well  as  Kentucky.  The  youthful  backwoodsmen  i'ell 
under  his  word  to  the  floor.  u  My  tears  flowed,"  he 
j,  umy  kneefi  became  feeble,  I  trembled  like  Bel- 
»  Autobiography  of  a  Pioneer,  etc.    Cincinnati,  1897. 


118  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

ehazzar,  the  great  deep  of  my  heart  was  broken  up." 
"  Toward  midnight  God  in  mercy  lifted  up  the  light  of 
his  countenance  upon  me,  and  I  was  translated  from  the 
power  of  darkness  into  the  kingdom  of  God's  dear  Son, 
and  rejoiced  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory." 
He  began  family  prayer  in  his  father's  cabin,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  his  "father,  mother,  and  almost  the 
whole  family  embraced  religion,  and  were  enrolled  as 
Methodists."  His  brother  Benjamin  was  among  these 
converts,  and  became  a  preacher ;  the  first  who  bore  the 
standard  of  Methodism  into  Illinois. 

In  1799  he  was  laboring  as  an  exhorter  amid  the  great 
revivals  that  then  prevailed  in  Kentucky.  In  1 801  he  was 
licensed  as  a  local  preacher.  M'Kendree  met  him  on  his 
great  district,  "covering  the  whole  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee,"  and  extending  into  Ohio.  "He  had  been 
but  a  few  months,"  says  Young, "  on  the  ground  when  he 
understood  perfectly  his  field  of  labor,  moving  day  and 
night,  visiting  families,  organizing  societies,  and  holding 
quarterly  Conferences.  It  was  his  constant  practice  to 
travel  from  thirty  to  fifty  miles  in  a  day,  and  preach  at 
night.  All  classes  of  people  flocked  to  hear  him ;  states- 
men, lawyers,  doctors,  and  theologians  of  all  denomina- 
tions clustered  around  him,  saying,  as  they  returned 
home,  'Did  you  ever  hear  the  like  before?'  Some, 
indeed,  were  so  captivated,  that  they  would  say, 
*  Never  man  spake  like  this  man.'  He  saw  that  the 
harvest  was  truly  great,  and  the  laborers  few.  Early 
in  the  morning  and  late  in  the  evening,  with  streaming 
eyes  he  prayed  God,  with  hands  and  heart  uplifted,  that 
he  would  send  forth  more  laborers  into  the  harvest. 
He  was  actively  engaged  in  forming  new  circuits,  and 
calling  out  local  preachers  to  fill  them.  Whenever  he 
found  a  young  man  of  piety  and  native  talent,  he  led 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUHCH.  119 

jira  out  into  the  Lord's  vineyard ;  and  Large  as  his  dis- 
trict  was,  it  soon  became  too  small  for  him.  He  ex- 
tended his  labors  to  every  part  of  Southwestern  Vir- 
ginia, then  crossing  the  Ohio  River,  he  carried  the  holy 
war  into  the  state  of  Ohio,  and  there  he  formed  new 
charges,  and  called  out  young  men.  They  found  that 
he  gloried  in  doing  the  hardest  of  the  work,  and  his 
example  inspired  them  with  the  same  spirit.  M'Ken- 
dree.  like  a  noble  general,  was  always  in  the  first  ranks, 
followed  by  such  men  as  Thomas  Wilkinson,  John  Page, 
Lewis  Garrett,  and  Jesse  Walker.  Under  the  super- 
vision of  these  men  the  preachers  were  stationed. 
Throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  West,  as  far 
as  the  country  was  settled,  M'Kendree  was  first  in 
counsel,  and  first  in  action.  If  he  appeared  on  a  camp- 
ground every  eye  was  upon  him,  and  his  word  was  law. 
In  private  circles,  Quarterly  Conferences,  and  Annual 
Conferences  he  was  the  master-spirit." 

In  1802  M'Kendree  summoned  Young  into  the  itiner- 
ancy. Happily,  at  one  of  his  appointments  on  the  cir- 
cuit, lived  Barnabas  MTIenry.  "I  may  truly  say," 
writes  Young,  "he  was  a  man  by  himself.  He  was,  at 
least,  fifty  years  before  the  time  in  which  he  lived.  He 
had  not  a  collegiate  education,  but  was  one  of  the  best 
English  scholars  I  ever  saw.  I  feel  myself  greatly  in 
debted  to  that  good  man  for  the  instruction  I  received 
from  him  at  that  early  period  of  my  life/' 

He  completed  his  first  round  of  Salt  River  Circuit  in 
six  weeks,  traveling  five  hundred  miles,  preaching  fifty 
sermons,  holding  many  class  and  prayer  meetings,  visit- 
ing many  families,  and  rejoicing  over  tin-  Laborious  field 
aa  the  happiest  scene  of  his  life  M  i  qow,"  he  - 
"began  to  feel  myself  pretty  well  harnessed  lor  the 
battle.     Mj         I   had  caughl  the  ■•.  fire,  and  I 


120  HISTOltY    OF    THE 

felt  disposed  to  go  on."  A  great  revival  spread  over 
the  circuit.  His  next  scene  of  labor  was  Wayne  Cir- 
cuit, his  colleague  being  James  Gwinn,  "then  called 
Colonel  Gwinn,  afterward  General  Jackson's  chaplain 
at  the  famous  battle  of  New  Orleans." 

They  divided  their  labors,  proposing  to  form  two  cir» 
cuits  on  Green  River.  The  young  evangelist  had  now 
strange  work.  He  must  form  his  own  apointments, 
organize  his  Churches,  and  break  his  way  through  the 
wilderness  as  best  he  could.  His  record  shows  how 
such  work  was  done  in  those  times.  "In  two  days,"  he 
says,  "I  arrived  at  Manoah  Lasley's,  where  I  spent  a 
few  days,  rested  my  horse,  and  recruited  my  wardrobe. 
I  found  myself  at  a  very  great  loss  to  know  how  to 
form  a  circuit  in  that  vast  Avilderness,  and  had  no  one 
to  instruct  me.  I  preached,  on  Sabbath  day,  in  Fathei 
Lasley's  house,  and  set  off  on  Monday  on  my  great  and 
important  enterprise.  I  concluded  to  travel  five  miles, 
as  nearly  as  I  could  guess,  then  stop,  reconnoiter  the 
neighborhood,  and  find  some  kind  person  who  would 
let  me  preach  in  his  log-cabin,  and  so  on  till  I  had  per- 
formed the  entire  round." 

He  found  his  way  full  of  difficulties ;  but  they 
readily  yielded  to  his  charming  manners  and  indom- 
itable spirit.  He  met  many  northern  Methodist  set- 
tlers buried  in  the  woods,  for  a  long  time  without  the 
means  of  grace,  and  who  hailed  him  with  rapturous 
welcomes.  Our  volume  could  be  filled  with  thrilling 
incidents  from  his  narrative,  all  of  which  are  histori 
cal  in  their  significance,  if  not  in  their  local  import- 
ance. Soon  after  he  had  started  on  his  route  he  says : 
"I  had  a  long  ride  through  a  dreary  country.  Late  in 
the  evening  I  came  to  a  little  log-cabin,  standing  in  the 

woods,  with  no    stable   or    outbuildings   of  any   kind, 
a 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         121 

Seeing  a  woman  in  the  door,  I  rode  up  and  asked  if  I 
could  stay  all  night ;  slie  deemed  to  think  not.  I  paused 
a  few  moments,  thinking  what  to  do.  I  was  afraid  to 
any  farther,  lest  I  should  have  to  lie  out  all  night. 
That  I  was  afraid  to  do,  as  the  weather  was  very  cold, 
and  there  were  always  a  great  many  ravenous  wolves 
in  the  barrens.  My  life  would  be  in  danger,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  encourage  me  to  stay  at  this  place.  I 
knew  I  would  have  to  tie  my  hungry,  tired  horse  to  a 
tree,  without  any  shelter  or  food.  The  woman  was 
unwilling  to  let  me  stay.  She  was  not  entirely  alone, 
but  had  several  children,  and  one  daughter  partly 
grown,  which  inclined  me  to  think  I  could  stay  with 
safety.  I  finally  concluded  to  let  her  know  who  I  wras, 
and  what  business  I  was  on.  I  said  to  her,  CI  am  a 
Methodist  preacher,  sent  by  Bishop  Asbury  to  try  to 
form  a  circuit.'  This  information  appeared  to  electrify 
her.  Her  countenance  changed,  and  her  eyes  fairly 
sparkled.  She  stood  some  time  without  speaking,  and 
then  exclaimed,  'Has  a  Methodist  preacher  come  at 
last  ?  Yes,  brother,  you  shall  stay  all  night.  Mr.  Car- 
son is  not  at  home,  but  we  will  do  the  best  we  can 
for  you  with  a  glad  heart.'  I  alighted  from  my  horse, 
and  went  into  the  house.  The  children  clustered  around 
me  as  if  some  near  friend  had  come.  After  having 
gone  through  with  the  usual  ceremonies,  my  next  con- 
cern was  to  take  care  of  my  horse.  Their  oldest  daugh- 
ter, a  pleasant  girl,  provided  me  with  a  halter,  and 
directed  me  to  a  suitable  tree  where  my  horse  could 
stand.  1  soon  found  I  was  to  have  a  comfortable  night's 
They  furnished  me  with  plenty  of  good  Bound 
corn  for  my  horse.  The  cabin,  and  what  little  furni- 
ture they  had,  \\;.-  aeat  and  clean.  Snpper  was  soon 
i  li  :i-  suited  me.  corn-bread,  fried  vm 


l22  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

ison,  and  crop-vine  tea.  Mrs.  Carson  then  told  me  her 
history.  She  and  her  husband  were  both  raised  in 
North  Carolina.  They  both  experienced  a  change  of 
heart  when  young.  Pier  husband  had  been  class-leader 
for  some  years  before  he  left  his  native  state.  They 
had  emigrated  in  order  to  buy  land  for  their  children. 
They  had  purchased  a  pretty  large  tract  on  one  of  the 
tributaries  of  Green  River,  lying  about  ten  miles  from 
where  they  then  lived,  and  her  husband  was  now  at 
work  on  their  own  land.  He  had  cleared  out  a  small 
farm,  and  built  a  tolerable  large  house,  which  he  was 
finishing.  By  the  time  I  came  round  again  they 
would  have  it  ready  for  me  to  preach  in.  I  spent 
the  evening  pleasantly,  and  by  the  time  day  dawned 
was  on  my  way  in  search  of  another  appointment. 
My  ride  was  along  the  dividing  ridge  between  Green 
River  and  Salt  River.  In  the  evening  I  stopped  at 
the  house  of  a  man  by  the  name  of  Honnel.  He  was 
in  pretty  good  circumstances  for  that  country,  had  a 
convenient  house,  and  very  willingly  opened  it  for  preach- 
ing. I  stayed  all  night,  and  the  next  day  preached  to 
a  small  congregation  ;  had  some  encouragement,  and 
in  the  afternoon  went  on  my  way  rejoicing.  Late 
in  the  evening  I  came  to  a  Mr.  Cooper's.  He  was  a 
local  preacher ;  but,  from  the  manner  in  which  he 
received  me,  I  thought  he  took  me  for  an  impostor.  In 
family  prayer  he  officiated  himself.  The  family  were 
reserved,  and  I  had  nothing  to  say.  They  fed  my  horse, 
gave  me  my  supper,  and  a  place  to  sleep.  Next  morn- 
ing they  told  me  I  might  preach.  The  word  was  circu 
lated,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  the  congregation  began  to 
come  together.  The  first  man  that  came  was  a  Seceder; 
as  I  had  been  reared  among  Seceders,  he  became  much 
attached  to  me.  and  gave  me  all  the  encouragement  he 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  123 

could.  I  tried  to  preach,  God  gave  me  great  free 
d.>m  of  speech,  and  we  had  an  excellent  meeting,  and 
Brother  Cooper  wept  much.  Here  we  organized  a 
small  class,  and,  having  tarried  one  nisfht  longer, 
the  next  morning  I  started  early.  Brother  Cooper 
and  his  wife  went  with  me.  About  ten  o'clock  we 
halted  at  Mr.  M'Cowan's.  Here  I  was  astonished 
to  find  a  large  congregation  assembled.  This  being 
the  Sabbath,  they  had  come,  hoping  to  meet  the 
preacher,  hearing  there  was  one  on  his  way  to  form  a 
circuit.  The  house  was  a  large,  double  cabin,  with  both 
rooms  full,  and  a  good  many  in  the  yard.  I  saw  many 
Methodists  amon^  them,  and  thev  were  sinking  Meth- 
odist  hymns  in  a  revival  spirit.  I  spent  most  of  the 
afternoon  in  class-meeting.  This  was  truly  a  good  day 
to  my  soul,  and  to  the  souls  of  many  others.  Here  I 
found  a  class  of  about  fifty  members  ready  formed  to 
my  hand.  I  took  some  pains  to  learn  the  history  of 
this  society.  It  was  formed  by  a  local  preacher  who 
had  resided  several  years  in  that  vicinity.  I  regulated 
the  society,  appointed  a  class-leader,  etc.,  and  went  on, 
bearing  toward  the  Crab  Orchard.  I  preached  at  Mr. 
Samuel  Stewart's,  and  found  a  small  class.  Here  I 
regulated  matters,  and  appointed  a  class-leader.  In 
this  neighborhood  I  found  a  great  many  Baptists,  who 
received  me  as  the  Lord's  messenger.  I  felt  myself  at 
home,  and  would  gladly  have  spent  days  in  the  place, 
but  my  work  was  before  me.  Before  night  I  met  with 
a  man,  who  gave  me  a  cordial  invitation  to  preach  in 
hi-  house,  where,  finding  a  small  society  already  c  r- 
ganized,  I  made  them  a  class-paper,  appointed  them  a 
leader,"  etc. 
Thus  had  Methodism,  by  it<  peculiar  practical  system, 

been   working   like  Leaven   nil    through   these   obscure 

J)— 9  d 


124  HISTORY    OF    THE 

regions.  It  trained  its  humblest  people  to  labor  in 
religion,  and  some  of  the  humblest  were  the  most  use- 
ful. Young  now  met  another  striking  example.  He 
found  a  man  who  could  exhort,  and  forced  him  nto 
the  service.  They  "  traveled  about  twenty  miles  on 
Fishing  Creek,  and  put  up  with  an  old  gentleman  by 
the  name  of  Chappel.  This  was  a  curious  neighbor 
hood.  Several  things,  worthy  of  remark,  came  under 
my  observation.  There  was  a  Methodist  society  here, 
the  preacher  of  which  was  a  colored  man  by  the 
name  of  'Jacob.'  I  believe  every  member  had  been 
awakened  under  his  preaching,  and,  by  the  assistance 
of  Mr.  Chappel's  daughters,  he  had  organized  them  into 
a  class.  One  of  the  girls  made  out  a  class-paper,  and 
they  appointed  Jacob  leader.  He  was  both  preacher 
and  leader ;  and,  although  he  could  not  read  a  word, 
he  could  preach  a  good  sermon.  He  had  a  kind 
master,  who  would  read  for  him  Saturday  evenings; 
and  when  a  text  was  read  that  suited  Jacob,  he  would 
ask  his  master  to  read  it  again,  memorize  the  text,  book, 
chapter,  and  verse ;  then  he  was  ready  for  his  work 
The  next  day  was  the  Sabbath.  The  congregation  wa» 
large,  and  I  found  his  society  in  excellent  order.  I 
preached  several  times,  and  left  this  delightful  place 
on  Monday  morning.  I  moved  on  toward  the  West. 
Some  time  after  dark,  and  while  stopping  at  a  tavern, 
a  man  called  at  the  door.  Being  asked  what  he  wanted, 
he  inquired  if  there  was  not  a  Methodist  preacher  there. 
I  heard  him,  and  was  soon  on  the  porch.  He  said  he 
understood  I  was  forming  a  circuit  through  that  country, 
and  wanted  me  to  take  in  his  house  for  one  of  the  ap- 
pointments. I  asked  him  how  far  oif  he  lived.  'Ten 
miles.'  I  replied,  '  I  will  go  with  you  to-night.'  At 
a  very  late  hour  we  arrived  at  a  small  log-cabin.     He 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         125 

kindled  a  fire  on  the  hearth,  the  light  shone  brightly, 
and  I  took  a  close  view  of  everything  within.  I  am 
sure  it  would  have  frightened  anybody  but  a  back- 
woodsman. There  was  no  floor  in  the  house.  They 
had  leveled  off  the  ground,  and  made  it  somewhat 
smooth.  There  were  hickory  poles  laid  across  in  the 
place  of  joists.  Some  clapboards  laid  on  these  poles 
constituted  the  upper  floor.  There  was  neither  bed- 
stead, chair,  nor  table  in  the  house.  Some  small  stakes 
or  forks  had  been  driven  down  in  the  west  corner  of  the 
cabin ;  they  laid  two  round  poles  in  the  forks,  and  placed 
clapboards  on  these  poles.  This  was  their  bedstead. 
Some  bedding,  such  as  it  was,  formed  all  the  sleeping 
place  I  saw  for  the  man  and  his  wife.  The  little  negro 
boy  slept  on  the  ground  floor  with  a  deerskin  under 
him.  I  saw  no  cupboard  furniture,  excepting  some 
earthern  bowls  of  Inferior  quality.  The  woman  of  the 
house  was  badly  crippled.  I  felt  rather  melancholy, 
and  my  mind  began  to  run  back  to  days  of  other  years, 
when  I  was  dwelling  among  my  own  people  in  ease  and 
plenty ;  here  I  was  in  a  strange  land,  without  friends  or 
money.  The  squalid  appearance  of  the  inside  of  the 
house  made  an  impression  on  my  mind  that  never  can 
be  erased.  Surrounded  by  these  gloomy  circumstances, 
I  had  no  friend  to  fly  to  but  the  Redeemer.  I  kneeled 
down  and  prayed,  and  the  Lord  blessed  me.  I  felt 
happy  and  resigned  to  my  lot.  The  next  thing  was  to 
make  my  bed,  and  lie  down  to  sleep.  I  spread,  for  my 
bed,  a  blanket  that  I  kept  under  my  saddle,  and  took  a 
stool  for  my  pillow.  I  had  another  blanket  on  which  I 
rode;  this  I  used  for  a  sheet.  My  saddle  bags  on  the 
stool  made  my  pillow  soft,  my  overcoat  became  my 
covering.  I  thanked  God  that  I  had  a  pretty  comfort- 
able bed.      I  thought    within   myself,  I   am   better  oil 


126  HISTORY     OF     THE 

than  my  Saviour  was,  for  he  'had  not  where  to  lay 
his  head ;'  and  far  happier  than  the  rich,  who  roll  on 
beds  of  down,  and  enjoy  all  the  luxuries  of  life.  I  had 
a  comfortable  night's  rest,  and  rose  in  the  morning  much 

O  7  O 

refreshed,  and  prepared  for  my  day's  labor.  Breakfast 
was  soon  served  up  on  a  board  bench.  It  consisted  of 
cornbread  and  milk,  but  no  spoons.  When  I  turned  up 
the  bowl  to  drink,  a  black  ring  would  make  its  appear- 
ance from  the  sediments  in  the  bottom.  Breakfast  being 
over  I  retired  to  the  woods,  and  spent  the  forenoon  in 
reading  and  praying  till  preaching  time.  Returning, 
I  saw  the  cabin  pretty  well  filled  with  men  and  women. 
Although  it  was  late  in  November,  many  of  them  had 
neither  hats  nor  bonnets  on  their  heads,  nor  shoes  on 
their  feet.  I  took  my  stand  opposite  the  door,  read  a 
hymn,  began  to  sing,  and  while  I  was  singing,  a  re- 
markable man  made  his  appearance.  He  was  so  distin- 
guished from  other  men,  that  I  will  give  some  account  of 
him.  He  was  very  large,  with  strongly-marked  features. 
From  the  muscles  of  his  face  I  perceived  that  he  was  a 
man  of  strong  natural  courage.  He  had  a  high  fore- 
head, very  wide  between  the  eyes,  with  a  broad  face ; 
his  whole  form  was  well  proportioned,  his  eyeballs  re- 
markably large,  showing  a  great  deal  of  white.  He 
fixed  his  eyes  upon  me,  and  looked  as  if  he  were  scan- 
ning my  whole  person.  Had  I  not  been  used  to  seeing 
rough  men  on  the  frontier  of  Kentucky,  I  should  have 
been  frightened.  I  looked  him  full  in  the  eyes,  and 
scanned  him  closely.  His  hair  appeared  as  though  it 
had  never  been  combed,  and  made  me  think  of  old 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  his  head  '  like  eagles'  feathers.' 
He  wore  no  hat ;  his  collar  was  open,  and  his  breast 
bare  ;  there  was  neither  shoe  nor  moccasin  on  his  feet. 
I  finished  my  hymn,  kneeled  down   and   prayed,   and 


M  K  I'll  u  l>  1ST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         127 

look  my  text  to  preach.  The  man  looked  for  no  seat, 
but   stood   erect,  gazing   on   me.      Before   I  was  half 

through  I  saw  the  tears  roll  down  his  rough  cheeks. 
I  elosed,  and  told  them  that  on  that  day  four  weeks  I 
would  be  there  again.  I  rode  away,  but  could  not  for- 
get the  big  man.  I  was  sure  he  had  distinguished  him- 
self some  way,  which  made  me  anxious  to  find  out  his 
history.  I  soon  learned  that  he  was  brother-indaw  to 
the  famous  robber,  Micajah  Harp,  a  character  so  well 
known  in  the  history  of  the  West.  Xo  doubt  they  had 
been  together  in  many  a  bloody  affray.  On  my  next 
round  he  joined  the  Church,  and  soon  afterward  became 
a  Christian.  He  could  neither  read  nor  write.  I  pro- 
cured him  a  spelling-book.  His  wife  taught  him  to 
read,  and  he  soon  learned  to  write.  On  my  third  or 
fourth  rouud  I  appointed  him  class-leader.  He  trimmed 
off  his  hair,  bought  a  new  hat,  clothed  himself  pretty 
well,  and  became  a  respectable  man.  I  heard  of  him 
several  years  afterward,  and  he  was  still  holding  on  his 
heavenly  way." 

Such  facts  show  the  times,  and  the  manner  in  which 
Methodism  met  them,  better  than  could  whole  chapters 
of  dissertation.  In  almost  all  the  settlements  Young  had 
similar  adventures  and  success,  and  left  them,  followed 
with  the  blessings  of  the  people,  who  were  hungry'  for 
the  word  of  life.  ''The  people  gathered  around  me,"  he 
-  i  .  -.  in  speaking  of  his  leave-taking  in  a  neighborhood, 
which  was  an  example  of  most  of  them  ;  "  some  talked,, 
others  shouted,  I  wept.  I  mounted  my  horse,  and  rode 
away.  While  passing  through  a  dense  forest  I  said  to 
-•If,  'T1r-  ajreal  and  glorious  days!1     I  was 

thankful  that  I  had  left  tat  her,  mother,  and  all  the  world, 
to  preach  the  gospel  to  perishing  Burners.  Coming  to  a 
little  cabin  standing  in  the  barrens,  I  tarried  all  aighl 


L28  HISTORY    OF    THE 

there,  preached  next  morning,  and  in  the  afternoon  rode  to 
the  Rev.  Noah  Lasley's,  the  place  where  I  began  to  form 
a  circuit.  I  had  been  gone  three  weeks,  and  had  formed 
a  full  four-weeks'  circuit.  Not  having  one  resting  day  in 
the  whole  plan,  I  sat  down,  wrote  out  my  plan,  and, 
having  reviewed  and  corrected  it  several  times,  felt  well 
satisfied.  I  compared  myself  to  a  man  settled  in  a 
wilderness,  who  had  built  his  cabin,  surveyed  his  land, 
and  was  preparing  to  clear  his  farm.  I  laid  aside  my 
books  and  papers,  and,  like  Isaac,  walked  into  the  woods 
to  meditate.  I  thought  I  was  one  of  the  happiest  mor- 
tals that  breathed  vital  air." 

At  the  close  of  the  year  he  says:  "I  received  but  little 
money,  not  quite  thirty  dollars,  for  my  whole  year's 
labor.  The  women  made  me  cotton  clothes,  and  I  wore 
them  quite  contentedly.  This  was  the  best  year  of  all  my 
life.  I  performed  ten  entire  rounds  on  that  circuit,  and 
closed  my  year  with  a  protracted  meeting  on  a  delight- 
ful eminence.  The  windows  of  heaven  were  opened, 
and  God  poured  out  such  a  blessing  that  there  was  not 
room  to  contain  it.  The  congregation  was  so  large 
that  we  held  prayer-meetings  in  many  places  under  the 
shade-trees.  The  work  went  on  with  increasing  rapidity 
till  the  middle  of  the  next  week,  when  I  gave  them  my 
valedictory.  I  had  never  seen  such  a  meeting  before, 
and  never  expect  to  again.  I  mounted  my  horse,  and, 
riding  away,  left  them  shouting  and  praising  God,  and 
have  never  seen  them  since.  Rev.  Thomas  Wilkinson 
came  on  in  the  place  of  the  presiding  elder,  and  took 
the  supervision  of  this  meeting.  He  preached  like  an 
apostle,  often  falling  on  his  knees.  Wilkinson  and  Gar- 
rett were  two  of  the  greatest  and  best  men  I  ever  knew. 
They  were  among  the  early  pioneers  of  the  West. 
What  these  men  did  and  suffered  for  Methodism  in  the 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         129 

West  will  never  be  known  till  the  books  are  opened  at 
the  last  day."  He  had  taken  three  hundred  members 
into  the  Church  on  his  new  circuit.  I  have  given  these 
abundant  citations  because  they  illustrate  a  curious 
problem,  forming  the  only  account,  so  far  as  I  know 
of  the  manner  in  which  a  new  circuit  was  formed  by 
the  early  itinerants  of  Methodism. 

We  are  tempted  to  linger  over  his  interesting  pages, 
but  must  hasten.  He  went  to  the  Conference  of  1803, 
and  gives  us  a  glance  at  that  session,  so  little  known, 
but  so  momentous  for  the  moral  welfare  of  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi.  "  It  was  held,"  he  says,  "in  the  house 
of  Benjamin  Coleman,  near  Cynthiana,  Kentucky.  Xext 
morning  I  repaired  to  the  Conference  room,  which  was 
about  eighteen  feet  square,  and  up  stairs.  I  was  dressed 
like  a  backwoodsman.  My  manners  and  costume  were 
answerable  to  the  description  given  of '  Rhoderick  Dhu,' 
of  Scotland,  by  Walter  Scott.  I  hesitated.  At  length 
I  ascended  the  stairs,  and  entered  the  Conference  room. 
There,  for  the  first  time,  I  saw  the  venerable  Asbury, 
seated  on  a  chair,  elevated  by  a  small  platform.  He 
was  writing,  his  head  white  as  a  sheet.  Several  of  the 
preachers  said,  '  Ccme  in,  come  in,  Brother  Young.' 
The  bishop  raised  his  head,  lifted  his  spectacles,  and 
a-ked  who  I  was.  M'Kendree  told  him  my  name.  He 
fixed  his  eye  upon  me  as  if  he  would  look  me  through 
M'Kendree  saw  I  was  embarrassed,  and  told  me  kindly 
to  take  a  seat.  Business  went  on,  and  I  sat  as  a  silent 
spectator.  I  thought  they  were  the  most  interesting 
group  of  men  I  had  ever  seen.  M'Kendree  appeared 
the  master-spirit  of  the  Conference.  Burke,  very  neatly 
--ed,  was  secretary.  His  auburn  head,  keen  black 
eye,  Bhowed  clearly  he  was  no  ordinary  man.  I  still 
remember  most  of  tVe  members'  names:  Thomas  Wil 


ISO  HISTORY     OF    THE 

kinson,  John  Watson,  Benjamin  Lakin,  Samuel  Doughty, 
John  Adam  Grenade,  Lewis  Garrett,  William  Crutch- 
field,  Benjamin  Young,  Ralph  Lotspeich,  Anthony 
Houston,  and  some  few  more  not  now  recollected. 
These  were  members  of  the  great  Western  Conference, 
comprehending  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Southwestern  Virginia, 
old  Tennessee,  and  the  Mississippi  territory.  This  year 
they  sent  missionaries  to  Illinois  and  Indiana.  In  a 
beautiful  grove,  a  mile  from  Mr.  Coleman's,  they  erected 
a  stand,  and  seats  to  accommodate  a  congregation.  The 
Conference  adjourned  every  day,  that  the  preachers 
might  attend  public  services.  As  I  was  not  in  full 
connection  I  had  no  seat  in  the  Conference ;  but  I  was 
free  to  go  and  come  as  I  pleased.  We  kept  up  prayer- 
meetings  nearly  all  the  time.  There  was  a  great  deal 
of  good  preaching  during  the  session,  and  1  have  no 
doubt  but  much  good  was  done  at  that  time.  There 
was  an  extensive  revival  all  through  Kentucky.  On 
Sabbath  Bishop  Asbury  preached  one  of  his  masterly 
sermons  to  about  ten  thousand  listeners.  This  was  a 
very  solemn  and  profitable  day.  On  Tuesday  I  was 
appointed  to  preach.  The  congregation  was  still  very 
large,  and  the  cross  was  heavy.  I  mounted  the  stand 
in  my  rough  costume;  every  eye  was  fixed  upon  me. 
My  voice  was  both  strong  and  clear.  I  preached  up- 
ward of  two  hours,  and  wound  up  with  a  pleasant  gale. 
Many  of  the  preachers  hung  around  me  and  wept,  and 
bade  me  Godspeed.  It  seemed  as  if  the  whole  assembly 
wanted  to  shake  hands  with  me.  I  sat  long  in  the  pulpit 
weeping  and  praising  God.  These  were  days  of  the  Son 
of  God  with  me." 

His  appointment  was  to  Clinch  Circuit,  where  he  had 
many  a  romantic  encounter.  In  the  last  year  of  our 
present  period  he  was  traveling  the  Holston  Mountains, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  131 

irhere  we  must  leave  him,  but  to  meet  him  often  here- 
after, for  he  is  henceforth  to  be  one  of  the  chief  heroes 
of  Western  Methodism,  from  Ohio  to  Mississippi,  and 
to  survive  most  of  his  itinerant  compeers. 

In  1802  a  very  striking  appointment  appears  on  the 
roll  of  the  Western  Conference,  that  of  "  Natchez,"  with 
the  solitary  name  of  Tobias  Gibson  attached  as  preacher. 
Xatchez,  however,  was  obscurely  recorded,  with  Gib- 
sou's  name,  two  years  earlier,  as  on  the  Georgia  District, 
which  fact  only  made  the  record  appear  the  more  ex- 
traordinary, for  the  immense  territories  which  are  now 
the  two  large  states  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  lay 
between  Georgia  and  this  point  on  the  Mississippi  River. 
The  remote  appointment  appeared  as  a  new  sign  in  the 
far-off  Southern  heavens;  to  the  pioneer  preachers  of 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  it  was  as  the  constellation  of 
the  cross  to  mariners  in  the  Southern  Seas.  It  opened  a 
boundless  prospect  of  progress ;  and  the  word  Xatchez 
sounded  like  a  new  order  of  march  to  the  itinerants  and 
their  cause — that  march  which  they  have  since  made 
over  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas,  even  to  the  Pacific 
boundary  of  California. 

Tobias  Gibson  was  worthy  of  the  pioneer  mission, 
and  was  soon  worthily  to  fall  a  martyr  to  his  heroism, 
but  not  without  opening  the  way,  never  to  be  closed, 
for  the  southwestern  triumphs  of  the  Church.  He  was 
a  saintly  man,  of  vigorous  intellect,  "greatly  given  to 
reading,  meditation,  and  prayer;"10  very  "affectionate 
and  agreeable"  in  his  manners.  He  was  born  in 
Liberty  County,  Georgia,  in  1771,  where  he  owned  a 
valuable  patrimony,  which  lie  forsook  for  the  gospel. 
Joining  the  itinerancy  in  his  twenty-second  year,  he 
•raveled  for  eight  years  large  circuits,  mostly  in  the  far 
Minutes,  L805. 


132  HISTORY    OF    THE 

South,  but  one  of  them,  as  early  as  1795,  among  the 
Holston  Mountains.  We  have  heretofore  seen  him 
encountering  with  Asbury  formidable  hardships.  In 
1799 "  he  volunteered  to  go  to  the  distant  Southern 
banks  of  the  Mississippi,  though  he  was  already  broken 
in  health  by  excessive  labors  and  privations.  With 
the  approval  of  Asbury  he  started  alone,  and  made  his 
way  on  horseback  to  the  Cumberland  River,  in  Ken 
tucky,  traveling  hundreds  of  miles  through  the  wil- 
derness, mostly  along  Indian  trails.  At  the  Cumber- 
land he  sold  his  horse,  bought  a  canoe,  and,  putting 
his  saddle-bags  and  a  few  other  effects  upon  it,  pad- 
dled down  the  river  into  the  Ohio,  and  thence,  six  or 
eight  hundred  miles,  down  the  Mississippi  to  his  destina- 
tion, where  he  immediately  began  his  labors,  eighteen 
years  before  the  Mississippi  Territory  became  a  state 
of  the  Union. 

Four  times  he  went  tnrough  the  wilderness,  six 
hundred  miles,  among  "Indian  nations  and  guides," 
to  the  Cumberland,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  ad- 
ditional laborers  from  the  Western  Conference.  In 
1803  he  presented  himself  before  that  body  a  broken- 
down  hero,  and,  though  needing  recruits  themselves, 
they  spared  him  Moses  Floyd,  for  the  solitary  veteran 
had  gathered  more  than  fourscore  (87)  members  at 
Natchez,  and  the  whole  country  was  ready  for  the  gos- 
pel.    By  the  next  Conference  there  were  more  than  a 

»  The  Minutes  indicate  1800  as  the  date,  hut  he  really  arrived  at 
Natchez  in  the  spring  of  1799.  There  is  "demonstrative  evidence"  of 
the  latter  fact  "from  private  family  records."— Notice  of  Rev.  James 
Griffing,  hy  Rev.  J.  G.  Jones,  in  the  "New  Orleans  Christian  Advo- 
cate." The  date  of  this  "Notice"  I  have  lost,  though  I  have  the 
"article"  on  file.  Bishop  Wiglitman,  in  an  allusion  to  Gihson,  (Biog. 
Sketches  of  Itinerant  Ministers,  p.  29.  Nashville,  1858,)  gives  1799  as 
the  true  year.  Such  an  epoch  is  not  without  importance,  not  onlv  to 
the  locality   hut  to  the  general  Church. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  133 

hundred  Methodists  reported  from  it,  and  Hezekiah 
Harriman  and  Abraham  Amos  were  sent  to  aid  the  two 
evangelists;  but  the  apostle  of  the  little  band  was  about 
to  fall  at  his  po-t ;  he  had  over-worked.  Harriman 
made  his  way  thither  through  "  thirteen  days  and  twelve 
nights1  toil  in  the  wilderness,'"  and  soon  witnessed  a 
"revival"  and  formed  the  Washington  Circuit;  but  he 
wrote  back  that  Gibson  was  sinking;  "his  legs  were 
swelled  up  to  his  knees,"  he  had  "  violent  cough,"  and 
had  not  been  able  to  preach  for  months.  "  Tell  my  dear 
brethren,  the  young  preachers,"  adds  Harriman,  "not 
to  be  afraid  of  this  place,  for  God  is  here,  and  souls 
have  been  converted  this  winter  in  public  and  private, 
and  others  are  inquiring  the  way  to  heaven.  Here  are 
also  a  great  many  souls  that  must  die  like  heathens, 
except  they  are  visited  by  faithful  ministers  of  the  gos- 
pel. My  hope  revives  that  God  will  pour  his  Spirit  on 
us  more  abundantly,  and  that  our  brethren  will  come 
and  help  us."12  Twenty  days  later  Harriman  wrote, 
"Brother  Gibson  has  gone  to  his  long  home."  He 
preached  his  last  sermon  on  Xew  Year's  Day,  1S04,  "and 
it  was  profitable  to  many  souls."  After  having  suffered 
for  three  years  with  consumption,  he  "  was  seized  with 
fever  and  vomited  blood."  He  died  in  Claiborne 
County,  on  the  5th  of  April,  1804.  He  had  "continued 
to  labor  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  as  long  as  he  was 
able  to  preach  or  pray,"  and  declared  to  his  fellow- 
laborer  that  "he  was  not  afraid  to  meet  death,"  and 
"wished  fur  the  hour."  His  brethren,  in  the  Old 
Minutes,  1805,  commemorate  him  with  admiration,  and 
say,  "  When  Elijah  was  taken  away  there  was  an  Elislia  : 
W€  have  two  valuable  men  that  will  supply  his  place  ; 
but  still  Gibson  opened  the  way;  like  a  Brainerd  he 
»  Extracts  of  Letters,  etc.,  p.  95.     New  V-.rk,  1  -  5, 


134  HISTORY    OF    THE 

labored  and  fainted  not,  nor  dared  to  leave  his  station 
till  death  gave  him  an  honorable  discharge.  Tobias 
Gibson  did  for  many  years  preach,  profess,  possess, 
and  practise  Christian  perfection;  and  those  who  were 
acquainted  with  him  must  be  impressed  with  Lis 
depth  of  piety ;  infidelity  itself  would  stagger  before 
such  a  holy,  loving,  and  devoted  man  of  God."  The 
pioneer  martyr  of  the  Southwest  had  done  a  great  work, 
and  his  sublime  example  will  never  be  forgotten  by  the 
Church.  In  the  autumn  of  the  year  of  his  death  Learner 
BlackmaD,  one  of  the  noblest  itinerants  of  the  West, 
went  to  take  his  place,  and  a  succession  of  evangelists 
followed  till  Methodism  spread  out  over  all  the  country. 
Of  Learner  Blackman  we  have  had  a  transient  glimpse, 
in  New  Jersey,  his  native  state,  where  John  Collins,  his 
brother-in-law,  and  afterward  his  co-laborer  in  the  West, 
was  guiding  him  in  his  early  religious  life.  He  now, 
and  for  some  years,  becomes  almost  ubiquitous  in  West- 
ern Methodism,  south  of  the  Ohio.  He  was  born  about 
the  year  1781 ;  the  exact  date  is  unknown.  His  early 
education  was  religious,  but  he  owed  his  conversion  to 
John  Collins,  in  about  his  sixteenth  or  seventeenth 
year.  In  1800,  when  not  nineteen  years  old,  he  joined 
the  Philadelphia  Conference,  traveled  two  years  in  Dela- 
ware, and,  in  1802,  threw  himself  among  the  pioneers 
of  the  Western  Conference.  After  itinerating,  with 
much  success,  three  years  in  Kentucky,  he  was  sent  in 
1804 !3  to  take  the  place  of  Gibson.  "Here,"  say  his 
brethren,  "a  new  scene  presented  itself  to  his  view. 
He  is  now  to  face  uncivilized  nations,  and  a  wilder- 
ness of  four  or  five  hundred  miles.     After  a  journey 

13  His  appointment  to  Natchez  appears  first  in  the  Minutes  of  1805 ; 
but  the  Western  Conference,  then  reported,  was  held  in  October,  1804. 
This  irregularity  of  dates  affects  many  other  matters  of  Western  Meth- 
odist history  in  these  early  times. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         135 

of  ten  or  eleven  days,  and  lying  out  as  many  nights, 
making  his  saddlebags  his  pillow,  his  blanket  and  cloak 
bis  bed,  the  heavens  his  covering,  the  God  of  Israel  his 
defense,  he  arrived  safe  in  the  territory.  At  the  time 
of  his  arrival  Methodism  was  in  its  infancy  in  that 
country.  Notwithstanding  there  were  some  respectable 
men  and  women  friendly,  yet  it  is  a  lamentable  truth, 
that  a  number  of  the  first  settlers  of  that  country 
were  bankrupts  in  morals,  and  their  proud  hearts  and 
irreligious  lives  made  them  oppose  the  truths  which 
this,  as  well  as  other  good  men,  delivered.  As  such, 
our  first  preachers  in  those  parts  had  considerable  diffi- 
culties. We  may  venture  to  affirm  that  they  were 
the  subjects  of  almost  universal  contempt ;  and  Black- 
man  shared  largely  in  these  sufferings.  In  1806  he  was 
appointed  to  preside  in  the  Mississippi  District :  God 
honored  his  ministrations  with  success,  sinners  were  con- 
certed, and  houses  were  built  and  dedicated.  In  1807 
ne  still  presided  in  the  district;  his  labors  were  still 
blessed,  souls  were  converted,  and  he  left  the  low  lands, 
followed  by  the  blessings  of  the  people."14 

When  he  left  the  Southwest  it  had  a  large  district, 
five  circuits,  six  preachers,  and  more  than  four  hundred 
(415)  members.  Returning  to  Tennessee  he  labored 
faithfully  on  various  circuits  and  districts  till  1815, 
when,  crossing  the  Ohio  in  a  ferry  boat,  his  horse  was 
frightened  and  threw  him  into  the  river,  where  he 
perished,  "an  event  which  caused  the  heart  of  the 
whole  Church  to  throb  with  sadness."  He  ranks  as  one 
of  the  great  men  of  early  Methodism.  "He  had  the 
appearance,  both  in  and  out  of  the  pulpit,"  says  a  eon- 
temporary  authority, "  of  being  quite  a  cultivated  man." 
In  stature  he  was  about  the  middle  height,  well-formed, 

m  Minutes,  1816. 


136  HISTORY    OF    THE 

with  a  full  face,  and  an  eye  which  shone  with  the  ligh\ 
of  genius.  Every  feature  became  strikingly  expressive 
while  he  was  preaching  or  conversing.  "  He  was  an 
eloquent  divine,"  says  one  of  his  fellow-itinerants,  and 
"  perhaps  under  the  labors  of  no  one,  in  his  day,  were  the 
borders  of  our  Zion  more  enlarged,  in  the  lengthening 
of  her  cords  and  the  strengthening  of  her  stakes."15 

While  the  range  of  Western  Methodism  was  thus  ex- 
tending southward,  it  was  also  advancing  in  the  opposite 
direction  into  the  great  Northwestern  territory.  We 
have  traced  its  introduction  and  first  movements  there 
under  the  agency  of  M'Cormick.  Repeatedly  did  this 
faithful  local  preacher  go  over  to  Kentucky  to  solicit 
itinerants  from  the  Conference,  but  none  could  yet  be 
spared  from  their  urgent  work.  Meanwhile  laymen,  like 
himself,  were  planting  the  Church.  He  met  in  Ken- 
tucky Ezekiel  Dimmit  t,  a  young  emigrant  from  Berkeley 
County,  Va.,  where  he  had  been  received  into  the 
Church  by  Joshua  Wells.  M'Cormick  urged  him  lo 
move  into  the  Northwestern  Territory,  and  help  to 
found  Methodism  and  a  new  state  there.  Dimmitt,  full 
of  religious  and  patriotic  ardor,  went  in  1797,  and  built 
his  cabin  on  the  east  fork  of  the  Little  Miami,  not  far 
below  the  present  town  of  Batavia.  He  was  eight  or 
ten  miles  from  any  neighbor,  but  attended  M'Cormick's 
class,  twelve  miles  distant  on  the  little  Miami,  near  the 
present  Milford.  He  became  a  powerful  coadjutor  with 
M'Cormick.  His  home  was  long  a  lodging  and  preach- 
ing appointment  of  the  itinerants,  and  he  deservedly 
ranks  among  the  founders  of  the  denomination  in  Ohio.16 
He  "possessed  extraordinary  physical  strength,  and  his 

15  Rev.  J.  B.  Finley. 

16  See  a  sketch  of  him,  by  Rev.  J.  F.  Wright,  in  West.  Christ.  Adv., 
January  20,  1866. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         137 

great  muscular  power  seems  to  have  been  made  an 
auxiliary  to  liis  usefulness.  By  it  he  was  enabled  to 
suppress  disturbances  that  would  sometimes  occur  at 
seasons  of  worship  in  the  newly  settled  country.  Xo 
man,  knowing  his  tremendous  force,  was  willing  to 
come  within  reach  of  his  iron  grasp.  Disorderly  per- 
sons, who  happened  to  be  so  unfortunate,  were  sure  to 
be  subdued,  finding  resistance  entirely  useless.  Indeed, 
he  seemed  fully  persuaded  that  it  was  better  for  such  as 
were  possessed  of  evil  spirits  to  be  delivered,  even  if 
they  were  torn  a  little,  than  to  remain  under  the  power 
of  demons." 

At  last  M'Cornrick's  appeal  to  the  Conference  was 
answered  by  the  mission  of  Kobler,  who,  on  the  second 
of  August,  1798,  "preached  the  first  sermon  delivered  in 
the  territory  by  a  regularly  constituted  Methodist  mis- 
sionary." "  He  administered  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  at  a  regularly  appointed  quarterly  meeting  at 
M'Cormick's,  held  on  the  twenty-fourth  and  twenty- 
fifth  days  of  December,  17£K  This  was  the  first  time 
the  Methodists  had  partaken  of  the  sacrament  in  the 
territory,"  etc.17 

"We  have  from  Kobler's  own  pen  an  allusion  to  his 
expedition.18  In  passing  through  the  country  he  found 
it  in  its  almost  native,  uncultivated  state.  The  inhab- 
itants were  settled  in  small  neighborhoods,  few  and  far 
between,  with  little  or  no  improvement  about  them. 
Xo  house  of  worship  had  been  yet  erected.  The  site  on 
which  Cincinnati  now  stands  was  a  dense  forest.  Xo 
improvement  was  to  be  seen  but  Fort  Washington,  which 

w  Report  of  a  committee  of  the  Quarterly  Conference  of  Milford 
Circuit,  on  the  introduction  of  Methodism  into  that  part  of  Ohio,  cited 
in  "  Lite  of  Gatch,"  p.  136. 

■  In  a  communication  from  him  to  the  Western  Historical  Society 

.,  p.  169. 


138  HISTORY    OF    THE 

was  built  on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  and  extended  down  to 
the  margin  of  the  river;  around  it  were  cabins,  in  which 
resided  the  first  settlers  of  the  place.  This  fortress  was 
then  under  the  command  of  General  Harrison,  and  was 
the  great  place  of  rendezvous  for  the  federal  troops,  which 
were  sent  by  the  government  to  guard  the  frontiers 
against  the  Indians.  Forty  years  later  Kobler,  in  re- 
visiting the  country,  landed  at  Cincinnati,  and  wrote 
that  he  came  from  aboard  the  steamboat  Bristol,  and 
walked  through  a  considerable  part  of  the  city ;  but 
had  no  language  to  express  his  reflections  while  com- 
paring the  past  with  the  present.  He  went  from 
street  to  street,  and  from  square  to  square,  for  more 
than  half  a  mile,  wondering  and  admiring  at  the 
great  change.  Having,  he  says,  since  arriving  in  Cin- 
cinnati, traveled  over  many  parts  of  his  old  mission- 
ary ground,  he  finds  a  most  astonishing  improvement 
has  taken  place.  Where  formerly  there  were  indistinct 
paths,  sometimes  only  trees  being  blazed  to  direct  his 
course  from  one  house  or  settlement  to  another,  now 
there  are  highly  improved  roads  and  turnpikes,  and 
every  facility  for  public  conveyance.  And  where  there 
stood  unbroken  forests,  now  there  are  numerous  villages 
and  large  towns,  numbering  their  thousands.  He  spread 
the  first  table  for  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
that  was  seen  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  When  the 
communicants  were  called  to  approach  it,  the  number 
did  not  exceed  twenty-five  or  thirty ;  and  this  was  the 
sum  total  of  all  that  were  in  the  country.  Now  the 
Minutes  of  the  Annual  Conferences  of  Ohio  returned 
one  hundred  thousand  regular  Church  members ;  so 
mightily  had  the  word  of  God  run  and  prevailed ! 
"  Where,"  he  continues,  "  we  once  preached  in  log- 
cabins,    we    now    see    stately    churches,    whose    spires 


MKTIIODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHUBCH.  139 

point  toward  heaven,  and  whose  solemn  bells  an- 
nounce the  Christian  Sabbath,  and  call  the  attention 
of  the  multitude  to  the  house  of  God.  This  is  indeed 
the  Lord's  doing !  Your  aged  servant  has  been  stand- 
ing on  the  walls  of  our  Zion  for  fifty-five  years ;  and 
while,  with  unwearied  vigilance,  he  has  been  guard- 
ing and  laboring  for  the  interests  of  the  Church,  he 
has  been  making  strict  observations  on  circumstances 
and  things  connected  with  the  Church ;  and  from  long 
observation  he  has  been  fully  convinced,  and  of  late 
more  so  than  ever,  that  it  is  the  doctrine  which  we 
preach,  the  discipline  which  we  have  exercised,  and 
the  system  by  which,  as  a  Church,  we  are  regulated, 
that  have  produced  these  happy  results  in  the  conver- 
sion and  sanctification  of  so  many  thousands." 

When  he  crossed  the  Ohio  in  1798  "at  a  little  village 
called  Columbia,*'  he  fell  upon  his  knees  upon  the  shore, 
and  prayed  for  the  divine  blessing  upon  his  mission. 
"  That  evening,"  he  writes,  "  I  reached  the  house  of 
Francis  M'Cormick.  He  lived  ten  or  fifteen  miles  from 
Columbia,  on  the  bank  of  the  Little  Miami  River.  On 
Thursday,  August  2, 1  preached  at  his  house  to  a  toler- 
able congregation  on  Acts  xvi,  9 :  '  And  a  vision  ap- 
peared to  Paul  in  the  night :  there  stood  a  man  of 
Macedonia  and  prayed  him,  saying,  Come  over  into 
Macedonia  and  help  us.'  It  was  a  time  of  refreshing 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  who  gave  testimony  to 
the  word  of  his  grace.  The  little  band  was  much 
rejoiced  at  my  arrival  among  them,  together  with  the 
prospect  of  having  circuit  preaching  and  all  the  priyi- 
s  and  ordinances  of  our  Church."  After  spending 
live  days  in  and  near  Milford,  Kobler  and  M'Cormick 
started  out  on  the  firs!  missionary  circuit  ever  traced  in 

the  Miami  country,  if  not  the  entire  Northwest  Tern- 

D-lu         '  * 


140  H1STQRY    OF    THE 

cory.  They  traveled  up  to  the  head- waters  of  the 
Miarais  and  Mad  Rivers,  to  the  outskirts  of  the  white 
population,  and  returned  southward  down  the  Great 
Miami  to  its  mouth,  and  thence  eastwardly  to  Milford, 
the  place  of  beginning.  This  circuit  embraced  about 
one  half  the  territory  now  included  in  the  Cincinnati 
Conference. 

After  seeing  Methodism  well  established  on  the  north 
bank  of  the  Little  Miami,  M'Cormick  once  more 
changed  his  location,  and  settled  in  Hamilton  County, 
about  ten  miles  east  of  Cincinnati.  "Here  again  his 
ardent  soul  went  out  in  prayer  and  ministerial  effort 
for  the  conversion  of  his  neighbors,  and  again  God  set 
his  seal  of  approbation  to  the  labors  of  his  devoted  serv- 
ant. A  class  was  soon  formed,  and  the  neighborhood 
supplied  with  regular  circuit  preaching,  M'Cormick 
pushing  out  in  all  directions  to  open  the  way  for  the 
itinerants.  This  class  was  the  beginning  of  what  has 
been  long  and  widely  known  as  the  'Salem  Society,'  and 
in  early  times  became  identified  with  the  old  White  Oak 
Circuit,  from  the  bounds  of  which  nearly  fifty  preach- 
ers have  been  raised  up  for  the  regular  work  of  the 
Methodist  ministry.  Among  this  number  were  Winans, 
Light,  Simmons,  M'Clain,  Eddy,  Raper,  Christie,  Baugh- 
man,  Foster,  holding  in  reserve  a  long  list,  having  as 
honest,  though  perhaps  not  so  wide  a  fame.  This  class, 
the  germ  of  the  Salem  society,  was  formed  in  M'Cor* 
mick's  new  double  log-cabin.  It  cannot  now  be  asserted 
who  had  the  honor  to  pronounce  the  dedicatory  address 
in  this  primitive  '  Church  in  the  wilderness ;'  but  we 
know  that  its  pulpit,  a  space  behind  the  chair  upon  the 
white  ash  floor,  was  afterward  occupied  by  such  men  as 
Bishops  Whatcoat,  Asbury,  M'Kendree,  George,  and 
Roberts,  as   well    as  by  the   chief  lights  of  our  early 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         141 

Western  ministry.  This  cabin  was  one  of  the  principal 
land  harbors  into  which  those  men  put  for  shelter,  pro- 
vision, and  repair.  Here  was  held  many  a  bishop's 
council,  for  our  local  preacher  was  one  of  those  wise  and 
judicious  men  whom  a  bishop  might  safely  consult."  19 

Kobler  labored  and  traveled  night  and  day  in  the 
t  erritory  for  about  nine  months.  He  wrote :  "  The  houses 
lure  are  very  small,  often  with  only  one  room  and  fire- 
place, around  which  the  whole  family,  children,  dogs, 
and  all,  crowd,  and  seem  to  claim  the  same  privileges, 
and  possess  equal  rights.  Frequently  I  sit  on  one  stool 
or  bench,  and  eat  off  another,  which  serves  as  a  table. 
This  domestic  order  I  ever  met  with  good  humor,  being 
taught  by  experience  for  years  to  'know  how  to  be 
abased,  and  how  to  abound.'  In  all  things  and  every- 
where to  be  instructed  'both  to  be  full  and  to  be 
hungry.'  When  we  retire  for  private  devotion,  and 
approach  a  throne  of  grace,  we  kneel  down  by  the 
side  <>f  a  tree  in  snow  knee  deep;  yet  even  this  is 
a  gracious  privilege.  There  are  no  candles  to  be  had 
for  night  reading  and  study.  We  take  a  parcel  of 
clarified  beeswax,  while  in  a  warm  state,  and  roll  out 
a  tube  in  the  shape  of  a  candle,  one  end  of  which  is 
rolled  into  a  coil,  so  as  to  set  on  the  table,  which  answers 
for  a  candlestick,  the  other  end  projects  perpendicular, 
and  gives  the  Light.  This  construction  is  very  portable, 
and  can  be  taken  out  in  the  saddle-bags.  In  the  day- 
time we  had  recourse  to  the  woods  for  reading  the 
Bible,  and  Studying  divinity.  Thus,  seated  "ii  an  old 
log,  many  a  sermon  has  been  composed,  which,  on  re- 
turning to  the  bouse,  has  been  preached  in  demonstra- 
tion of  tin-  Spirit  and  of  power.  Horses  usually  had  to 
be  tied  to  a  tree  <>r  fen 

»»Rev.  J.  W.  Fowble,  in  I  ry,  March,  I 


142  HISTORY     OF    THE 

He  continued  in  the  itinerancy  till  1819,  when  he  lo- 
cated ;  but  the  Baltimore  Conference,  without  his  soli- 
citation, put  his  name  upon  its  honored  roll  of  super- 
annuated preachers  in  1836.  He  died  in  Fredericks- 
burgh,  Va.,  in  1843,  aged  seventy-four  years.  His  last 
words  were,  "  Come,  Lord  Jesus ;  come,  Lord  Jesus,  ir. 
power ;  come  quickly  ! " 20 

On  Kobler's  return  to  Kentucky  Lewis  Hunt  was  sent 
to  the  territory,  and  in  1799  the  Miami  Circuit,  the  first 
Methodist  appointment  in  Ohio,  appears  in  the  Minutes, 
with  the  name  of  Henry  Smith  as  preacher.21  Dimmitt's 
house  was  on  Hunt's  circuit,  and  was  made  a  preaching 
place;  it  was  a  cabin  about  sixteen  feet  square.  Here 
was  commenced  a  small  class,  consisting  of  Ezekiel 
Dimmitt  and  Phoebe  his  wife,  Samuel  Brown  and  Susan 
his  wife.  At  this  time  there  were  very  few  settlers  in 
that  section,  and  the  country  was  almost  a  trackless 
wilderness,  with  no  public  roads  except  those  which 
had  been  temporarily  opened  for  the  army  engaged  a 
short  time  before  in  the  frontier  war  with  the  Indians. 
Dimmitt  usually  accompanied  the  preacher,  removing 
the  obstructions,  and  breaking  bushes  to  guide  him  when 
he  should  have  no  pilot.  No  effort  or  sacrifice  was  too 
much  for  the  zealous  layman  to  make  for  the  good  cause. 

Smith  says :  "  Lewis  Hunt,  a  young  man  from  Ken- 
tucky, was  appointed  to  travel  the  Miami  Circuit,  in  the 
year  1799,  by  the  presiding  elder.  We  had  heard  that 
he  was  broken  down,  and  I  was  sent  to  take  his  place, 
On  the  fifteenth  of  September  I  set  out,  in  company 
with  M'Cormick,  to  meet  Hunt  on  Mad  River.      We 

20  Minutes,  1844. 

21  Hunt's  name  is  not  recorded  in  connection  with  the  appointment, 
as  Smith  was  sent  to  relieve  him  before  the  appointments  were  pub 
lished.     See  Smith's  Recollections,  p.  310. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         143 

met  him  at  Hamor's,  and  foun  I  him  so  far  recovered  as 
to  he  able  to  go  on  in  his  work.  My  instructions  were, 
thai  if  he  should  he  ahle  to  continue,  to  go  up  to  Scioto 
and  form  a  circuit  there.  We  consulted  our  friends, 
and  formed  the  plan  of  uniting  Scioto  to  Miami,  and 
making  a  six  "weeks'  circuit  of  it.  This  plan  was,  how- 
ever, abandoned  on  account  of  the  great  distance  be- 
tween the  circuits,  and  the  dismal  swamp  we  would 
have  to  pass  through  every  round."  The  distance 
between  the  two  streams  was  nearly  one  hundred 
miles,  and  the  swamp  was  nearly  twenty  miles  in 
extent.  He  organized  therefore  a  separate  circuit, 
the  Scioto,  nearly  four  hundred  miles  in  range.  He 
found  several  classes  already  spontaneously  formed  by 
emigrant  Methodists;  one,  the  first  on  the  circuit  prob- 
ably, at  Anthony  Davenport's,  Deer  Creek,  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Scioto.  It  had  been  organized  by  Tiffin, 
who  was  now  effectively  helping  to  found  Methodism 
in  the  territory,  as  we  have  already  seen,  and  who 
"preached  regularly  to  the  little  society."  "  We  had  a 
powerful  time,"  s;iy>  Smith,  "at  our  first  meeting,  and 
looked  up  for  a  revival  of  God's  work,  and  an  ingather- 
ing of  precious  souls." 22 

He  went  on  laboring  unceasingly  over  his  long 
circuit,  preaching  twenty  sermons  every  three  weeks, 
and  organizing  small  societies  in  almost  every  set- 
tlement, for  he  found  emigrant  Methodists  nearly 
everywhere.  The  first  quarterly  meeting  of  the  cir- 
cuit was  held  in  Maivh,  1800.  "  We  had,"  he  says, 
"no  elder  to  administer  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper;  but  the  great  Head  of  tin-  Church  deigned 
to  be  with  ns,  and  blessed  as  indeed.  .Many  tears  were 
shed, and  ><<nn-  thought  they  never  were  to  such  a  meet- 

'  th.  Mai 


144  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ing  before.  We  had  twelve  classes,  and  eight  or  time 
local  preachers,  and  some  exhorters.  I  was  reappointed 
to  the  circuit,  and  returned  in  June,  1800.  No  preacher 
was  sent  to  the  Miami  Circuit  that  year,  so  I  was  alone 
in  that  wilderness,  as  it  was  then,  for  about  eighteen 
months,  and  withal  I  was  much  afflicted,  and  not  able 
to  do  much.  Our  first  quarterly  meeting  (for  Scioio 
Circuit)  for  this  year  began  at  Moore's  Meeting-house, 
on  Scioto  Brush  Creek,  on  the  27th  of  September.  I 
believe  this  was  the  first  Methodist  meeting-house  that 
was  built  on  that  side  of  the  Ohio  River.  We  had  no 
presiding  elder  present ;  but  the  Lord  was  with  us  of  a 
truth,  and  condescended  to  manifest  himself  to  us  in  the 
house  that  we  had  built  for  his  worship.  Our  next 
quarterly  meeting  was  at  Pee-pee,  on  the  27th  and  28th 
of  December,  and  the  Lord  made  it  plain  to  us  that  he 
does  not  despise  the  day  of  small  things,  for  he  deigned 
to  meet  with  us  in  our  cabin  on  the  banks  of  Scioto, 
and  we  had  a  very  refreshing  season  indeed ;  yea,  in  the 
presence  of  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  and  the  en- 
joyment of  his  love,  we  were  as  happy  as  if  we  sat 
among  the  thousands  of  Israel  in  some  magnificent 
building.  Miami  Circuit  was  then  in  a  woeful  situa- 
tion, and  so  continued  until  autumn,  1802,  when  Elisha 
Bowman  was  sent  there.  That  year  things  took  a 
favorable  turn,  and  a  great  and  glorious  change  was 
soon  visible.  I  dragged  on  through  great  difficulties 
and  much  affliction,  and  ended  my  labors  at  the 
quarterly  meeting  on  Scioto  Brush  Creek,  on  the 
29th  and  30th  of  August,  1801,  and  returned  to  Ken- 
tucky on  the  first  day  of  September  following,  having 
spent  near  two  years  in  the  territory  northwest  of  the 
Ohio."  He  organized  Methodism  at  Chilicothe,  July  7, 
1800,  after  preaching  there  under  the  trees.     The  first 


M  ETH  O  D I  SI     EPISCOPAL    CH  U  R  C  IT.  145 

society  consisted  of  eighteen  members.  Tiffin,  though 
residing-  at  Chilicothe,  still  remained  a  member  at  Dav- 
enport's, where  he  preached  regularly. 

Meanwhile  an  important  acquisition  was  made  by  the 
struggling-  Bociety  in  the  arrival,  on  the  scene,  of  one  of 
our  earliest  and  most  interesting-  heroes.  Philip  Gatch 
emigrated,  with  his  family,  to  the  Miami  region,  and 
appeared  there  but  a  few  months  after  the  coming  of 
Kobler.  lie  was  born,  as  we  have  noticed,23  in  the  same 
year,  and  began  to  preach  as  early  as  William  Watters, 
who  worthily  ranks  as  the  first  native  Methodist 
preacher  of  the  United  States,  having  anticipated  Gatch 
a  short  time  on  the  records  of  the  Conference.  But 
Gatch  was  more  conspicuous  than  Watters  for  his 
sufferings  and  activity  in  the  early  history  of  the  de- 
nomination. We  have  seen  him,  after  his  marriage, 
locate,  but  continue  his  labors,  in  Virginia.  In  October, 
1798,  he  started  for  the  West.  "My  mind,"  he  writes, 
'•  had  dwelt  on  the  subject ;  still  I  could  not  relinquish 
the  enterprise.  I  viewed  the  evils  of  slavery  at  present 
as  great,  and  apprehended  more  serious  results  in  the 
future,  if  some  effectual  remedy  should  not  be  applied. 
Before  setting  out  I  met  with  a  large  assembly  of  my 
neighbors  and  acquaintances,  and  discoursed  to  them 
on  Acts  xx,  25.  We  reciprocated  warm  feelings,  and 
shed  many  tears  on  the  occasion.  On  the  11th  of  Oc- 
tober my  brother-in-law,  Rev.  James  Smith,  my  friend 
Ambrose  Ransom,  and  myself,  with  our  families,  set 
out."21  He  was  now  a  neighbor  of,  and  a  co-workei 
with  M'Cormick,  and  his  home  became  a  "  preaching 
place91  and  a  shelter  for  the  itinerants.  Most  of  his 
children  were  here  gathered  into  the  Church.  Kobler, 
who  had  known  him  in  the  Blast,  was  delighted  to  meet 
»  Vol.  i,  p.  180.  «  Judge  M'Leaii's  Lite  of  Gatch,  p.  96. 


U6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

him.  In  his  Memoirs,  Kobler  is  described  as  "  tall  and 
well  proportioned ;  his  hair  black  and  long,  extending 
over  the  cape  of  his  coat ;  his  dress  neat,  with  a  straight 
breasted  coat,  and  in  every  respect  such  as  became  a 
Methodist  preacher  of  that  day.  He  had  a  most  impree 
sive  countenance.  It  showed  no  ordinary  intellectua. 
development,  united  with  sweetness  of  disposition,  un 
conquerable  firmness,  and  uncommon  devotion.  His 
manner  was  very  deliberate  at  the  commencement  of 
his  discourse,  but  as  he  advanced  he  became  moic 
animated,  and  his  words  more  powerful."  While  the 
Miami  Circuit  was  without  a  preacher,  as  noticed  in 
the  extracts  from  Smith,  Gatch  labored  hard  to  sup- 
ply it,  and  "a  great  revival,"  he  says,  "took  place 
in  our  settlement."  And  now,  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life,  he  was  a  representative  man  of  his  Church  in 
Ohio,  preaching  often,  and  promoting  zealously  its  rising 
interests.  He  was  made  a  magistrate,  was  a  delegate 
to  the  convention  which  formed  the  Constitution  of  the 
state,  and  was  appointed  by  the  legislature  an  Associate 
Judge.  He  became  a  most  influential  citizen,  a  patriarch 
of  the  commonwealth  as  well  as  of  the  Church.  Asbury, 
Whatcoat,  and  M'Kendree  were  often  his  guests,  and  his 
old  eastern  fellow-laborers,  Watters,  Dromgoole,  and 
others,  cheered  him  with  letters.  For  twenty-two  years 
his  position,  on  the  bench  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas, 
reflected  honor  on  the  public  justice.  His  friend  and 
fellow-preacher,  Judge  Scott,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
attained  the  honor  of  the  Supreme  Court,  says  he  was 
"  regarded  as  a  man  of  inestimable  worth."  His  con- 
nection with  the  early  history  of  the  Church  rendered 
his  old  age  venerable,  and  the  Ohio  Conference  placed 
his  name  among  its  superannuated  preachers,  that  he 
might  die  with  it  on  their  record.     After  invaluable 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        147 

services  to  his  Church  and  country,  he  preached  his  last 
sennon  ou  the  day  in  which  lie  was  eighty-four  years  old, 
and  died  the  next  year  (1835)  "in  great  peace  and  un- 
shaken confidence  in  Christ."*  His  old  friend,  Kobler, 
revisited  the  country  six  years  after  his  death.  "Taking 
my  hand,"  writes  a  son  of  Gatch,  "he  held  it  for  sorat 
time  in  silence,  looking  me  in  the  face  with  a  most  im- 
pressive expression  of  countenance,  which  produced  in 
me  a  sensation  that  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe.  At 
length,  in  the  most  emphatic  manner,  he  said,  'Your  fa- 
ther was  a  great  man  in  his  day.  He  fought  many  hard 
battles  for  the  Church.  May  you  be  a  worthy  son  of  so 
worthy  a  father!'  He  visited  the  graves  of  my  parents, 
took  off"  his  hat,  and  stood  some  minutes  as  if  absorbed 
in  deep  thought ;  fell  upon  his  knees  for  some  time, 
arose  bathed  in  tears,  and  walked  out  of  the  graveyard 
in  silence."  He  was  burdened  with  great  memories,  for 
the  two  veterans  had  shared  in  events  which  history,  ages 
to  come,  may  commemorate.  Henry  Smith,  with  whom 
we  have  journeved  so  much  in  these  western  reoions, 
says  of  him,  "He  preached  extensively  and  successfully, 
and  did  much  toward  establishing  and  extending  Meth- 
nn  in  that  country,  and  giving  it  a  proper  tone.  We 
all  looked  up  to  him  as  a  patriarch,  a  counselor,  and 
waymark.     In  a  word,  he  was  a  prince  in  our  Zion." 

fcFCormick,  Gatch,  Tiffin,  Seott,  laymen  and  local 
preachers,  with  not  a  few  others  of  like  spirit,  gave  a 
character  and  impulse  to  Methodism  in  Ohio,  to  whirl- 
must  be  ascribed  much  of  it-  subsequent  power  over  al. 
the  old  Northwestern  Territory.  M'Cormick  lived  and 
died  in  a  manner  worthy  of  his  historical  position.  In 
advanced  Life  (1821)  h<-  wrote,  "I  am  now  grown  old, 
and  what  can  I  say  respecting  Methodism?  I  believe 
*  Ifinufc  -.  1886. 


148  HISTORY    OF    THE 

its  plan  is  of  divine  origin,  and  millions  with  me  will 
have  cause  to  thank  and  adore  the  Lord  through  eternity 
for  it,  and  for  the  whole  of  Methodism.     I  do  not  be 
lieve  there  ever  was  such  a  set  of  men  since  the  apostolic 
day  for  zeal,  fortitude,  and  usefulness  in  bringing  sin 
ners  to  the  knowledge  of  themselves  and  of  Christ  as 
our  traveling  preachers.     My  journey  through  life  will 
soon  be  brought  to  a  close.     I  have  no  other  plea  to 
make  'but  that  Jesus  Christ  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners,  of  whom  I  am  chief.' " 26     In  the  latter  part  of 
his  life  he  was  absolved  from  active  service  by  maladies 
which  were  the  effects  of  the  exposures  and  fatigues  of 
his  early  preaching,  but  "  the  evening  of  his  days  was 
cloudless."     He  died  in  1836,  and  his  last  words  were 
"  Glory,  honor,  immortality,  and  eternal  life ! "  27 

John  Sale,  from  whom  we  have  recently  parted,  was 
sent  to  the  Scioto  Circuit  in  1803.  The  next  year /he 
was  appointed,  says  his  biographer,  to  Miami  Circuit. 
These  two  circuits  then  embraced  all  the  south  and 
west  portions  of  the  state  of  Ohio.  It  was  while  travel- 
ing this  circuit  that  he  organized  the  first  society  of 
Methodists  in  Cincinnati.  The  Conference  which  had 
been  held  at  Mount  Gerizim,  Ky.,  the  preceding  year,  or- 
ganized the  Ohio  District,  the  first  in  the  state,  and  ap- 
pointed Burke  presiding  elder.  We  may  get  some  idea 
of  the  extent  of  its  fields  of  labor,  and  the  manner  in 
which  they  were  supplied,  from  the  list  of  appointments  • 
Muskingum  and  Little  Kanawha,  George  Askins ;  Hock- 
hocking,  James  Quinn,  John  Meek ;  Scioto,  William  Pat 
terson,  Nathan  Barnes ;  Miami,  John  Sale,  J.  Oglesby . 
Guyanclotte,  Asa  Shinn.  When  we  remember  the  sparse- 
ness  of  the  population,  the  distance  between  the  appoint- 
ments without  roads,  rivers  to  be  crossed  without  bridges, 

«•  MetL.  Mag.,  1822,  p.  315.         2T  Ladies'  Repository,  March,  1860. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         1-19 

it  must  be  obvious,  says  a  contemporary  Methodist,  that 
Done  but  such  as  felt  a  necessity  laid  upon  them  to  preach 
the  gospel  would  be  likely  to  engage  in  such  a  work.  - 
From  the  same  authority  we  learn,  more  particularly,  the 
organization  of  the  Church  in  Cincinnati  by  Sale.  Sev- 
eral preachers  had  been  there  before.  Kobler  had  visited 
k!  in  1798;  lie  describes  it  as  "an  old  garrison,  (Fort 
Washington,)  a  declining,  time-stricken,  God-forsaken 
place."'  He  wished  to  preach,  but  "  could  find  no  open- 
ing or  reception  of  any  kind  whatever."  Lewis  Hunt 
and  Elisha  Bowman  occasionally  ventured  into  the  de- 
moralized place,  and  preached  without  result.  In  1804 
John  Collins,  who  had  come  the  year  before  to  the  terri- 
tory, but  was  not  yet  in  the  itinerancy,  went  to  it  to  pur- 
chase provisions.  He  inquired  of  a  storekeeper,  "  Is  there 
any  Methodist  here  ?"  "  Yes,  sir,"  was  the  reply ;  "I  am 
a  Methodist."  The  local  preacher  was  taken  by  surprise 
at  the  joyful  intelligence,  and,  throwing  his  arms  around 
the  layman's  neck,  he  wept.  He  eagerly  inquired  if  there 
were  any  more  Methodists  in  the  place.  The  response 
was  equally  cheering :  ;;  O  yes, brother,  there  are  several." 
The  heart  of  Collins  leaped  for  joy.  "  O,"  said  the  zeal- 
ous young  preacher, ':  that  I  could  have  them  altogether! " 
':In  this  you  shall  be  gratified,  my  brother,"  rejoined  the 
layman  ;  M I  will  open  my  house,  and  call  together  the  peo- 
ple, if  you  will  preach."  The  upper  room  of  Carter,  the 
merchant's  house  was  fitted  up  with  temporary  benches, 
while  every  effort  possible  was  made  to  give  the  appoint- 
ment an  extensive  circulation.  Only  twelve  persons 
attended, but  *;it  was  a  memorable  time  for  Methodism  in 
Cincinnati.  It  was  the  planting  of  a  handful  of  com  on 
the  tops  of  the  mountains,  the  increasing  and  ever  multi- 
plying products  of  which  were  to  -hake  with  the  irui 
*•  Fin 


150  HISTORY    OF    THE 

of  Lebanon."  The  next  sermon  to  this  infant  Church 
was  by  Sale  in  a  house  in  Main-street,  between  First 
and  Second-streets.  The  congregation  was  increased  to 
thirty  or  forty  persons.  After  preaching,  a  proposition 
was  made  to  organize  a  society  in  the  usual  way,  ac- 
cording to  the  Discipline  of  the  Church.  A  chapter  was 
read  from  the  Bible ;  then  followed  singing,  prayer,  and 
the  reading  of  the  General  Rules  of  the  society.  All, 
then,  who  felt  desirous  of  becoming  members  of  the 
society,  and  were  willing  to  abide  by  the  General  Rules, 
came  forward  and  gave  in  their  names.  The  number 
was  only  eight,  consisting  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Carter,  their 
son  and  daughter;  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gibson,  and  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  St.  Clair.  Mr.  Gibson  was  appointed  the  leader. 
A  Church  being  organized,  arrangements  were  made 
to  have  preaching  regularly  every  two  weeks  by  the 
circuit  evangelists.  The  society  received  an  accession  in 
the  ensuing  spring  by  the  arrival  in  town  of  two  Meth- 
odist families;  namely,  those  of  Messrs.  Richardson  and 
Lyons,  and  subsequently  by  the  arrival  of  Messrs.  Nel- 
son and  Hall,  and  their  families.  This  little  band  of 
Christians  were  closely  attached  to  each  other,  and  were 
one  in  sentiment  and  action.  Meetings  were  held  in 
the  old  log  school-house  below  the  hill,  not  far  from 
the  fort.  The  location  of  this  school-house  was  such 
as  to  accommodate  the  villagers ;  and  as  its  site  was 
near  the  intersection  of  Lawrence  and  Congress  streets, 
it  is  presumed  that  this  portion  of  the  town  was  the 
most  thickly  inhabited.  In  1805  the  small  society 
began  to  build  their  first  church,  the  "  Old  Stone 
Chapel."  Such  was  the  humble  origin  of  Methodism 
in  Cincinnati. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  note  that  it  was, 
during   these  times,   invading  Ohio  from  the   East  as 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  151 

well  as  from  the  South.  Robert  Manly,  as  early  as 
]  799,  formed  a  circuit  reaching  from  the  Ohio  River 
up  the  Muskingum  some  forty  miles,  organized  the  first 
society  in  Marietta,  and  left  some  ten  or  twelve  classes 
on  the  circuit.29  Jesse  Stoneman  followed  him,  and  so 
enlarged  the  field,  that  Quinn  was  sent  by  Hitt  in  the 
fall  to  assist  him ;  the  townships  on  Hockhocking  were 
comprehended  in  it,  and  many  societies  were  formed, 
and  a  host  of  preachers,  local  and  itinerant,  raised 
up.  Asa  Shinn  organized  a  large  four  weeks'  circuit  on 
Hockhocking  in  1803,  with  some  fifteen  societies,  and 
Quinn  was  there  again  in  1804.  Thence  Methodism 
kept  pace  with  the  settlements  extending  back  on  the 
tributaries  of  the  stream,  and  to  Lake  Erie,  giving  rise 
to  scores  of  circuits. 

Meanwhile,  from  the  home  of  Roberts,  in  the  Chenango 
and  Erie  regions,  the  itinerants  made  their  way  across 
the  line,  and  Deerfield,  in  Portage  County,  is  reported 
in  the  Minutes  of  1803,  with  Shadrach  Bostwick  as  its 
"  missionary. "  Henry  Shewel,  a  local  preacher  from 
Virginia,  had  preceded  him,  as  we  have  recorded,  and 
as  early  as  1801  a  small  society  had  spontaneously  or- 
ganized in  Deerfield.  Bostwick  was  pre-eminent  among 
the  men  of  that  day,  a  native  of  Maryland,  who  joined 
the  itinerancy  in  1791,  and  after  traveling  in  Delaware, 
.Maryland,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York,  entered  New 
England  in  1797,  and  presided  over  some  of  its  districts 
with  great  success  down  to  1803,  when,  like  Beauchamp 
in  Western  Virginia,  he  surprises  us  by  his  sudden 
appearance  here  in  the  northwest  of  Ohio.  He  had  thus 
penetrated  the   old   "Western  Reserve,"   and  was  the 

29  It  appears  not  improbable  that  Manly  crossed  the  line  from 
Pennsylvania  or  Virginia,  and  occasionally  preached  in  Ohio,  as  early 

«-  1785. 

j 


152  HISTORY    OF    THE 

firt,t  Methodist  preacher  sent  into  that  region,  and  formed 
the  circuit.  It  extended  among  the  sparse  villages,  and 
required  extraordinary  labors  and  sacrifices.  He  traveled 
on  the  Indian  trails  and  by  marks  on  the  trees.  The 
roads  were  so  bad  in  winter,  and  the  bridges  so  few, 
that  he  had  to  desist  from  traveling  for  several  months 
during  the  worst  weather.  He  formed  the  first  Method- 
ist societies  in  that  flourishing  country,  and  the  results 
of  his  labors  during  this  and  the  following  year  have 
continued  to  multiply  to  the  present  time,  "  keeping  an 
even  pace  with  the  progress  of  the  settlements,  and  the 
improvement  of  society."30  He  located,  on  account  of 
domestic  necessities,  in  1805,  and  resumed  the  practice 
of  medicine,  to  which  he  had  been  educated.  "Sha- 
drach  Bostwick,"  says  one  of  his  old  friends  and  fellow- 
laborers,  "  was  a  glorious  man." 31  He  was  a  remark- 
able preacher,  famous  through  all  the  extensive  regipns 
of  his  labors  for  the  intellectual  and  evangelical  power 
of  his  sermons.  His  talents  would  have  secured  him 
eminence  in  any  department  of  public  life.  His  dis- 
courses were  systematic,  profound,  luminous,  and.  fre- 
quently overpowering,  his  piety  deep  and  pure,  his 
manners  dignified  and  cordial. 

Methodism  was  then  fully  on  its  march  into  the 
Northwestern  Territory,  at  nearly  every  accessible  point, 
by  the  close  of  our  present  period.  It  had  not  only  in- 
vaded Ohio,  but  reached  hopefully  beyond  it.  As  early 
as  180232  Methodist  preachers  ventured  within  the  pres- 
ent limits  of  Indiana,  which  then  had  but  a  few  scattered 
settlers.     Its  first  Methodist  was  Nathan  Robertson, 


»o  Bangs's  Hist  of  Meth.,  vol.  ii,  p.  80. 

si  Bishop  Hedding  to  tlie  author. 

32  Rev.  Dr.  Aaron  Wood's  Annals  of  Meth.  Epis.  Ch.  in  Indians),,  p.  3. 

Indianapolis,  1S54. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        153 

who  moved  from  Kentucky  to  Charleston  in  1799;  three 
years  later  a  small  class  was  organized  at  Gassaway, 
near  Charleston,  in  Clark  County.33  The  first  chapel  of 
the  denomination,  in  the  state,  still  stands  about  two 
miles  from  Charleston  ;  it  was  made  of  hewed  logs, 
"  and  is  in  a  good  state  of  preservation,  though  not  used 
for  worship."34  By  1807  we  shall  find  in  the  state  one 
circuit,  with  one  preacher  and  sixty-seven  members ; 
and  by  1810,  three  circuits,  four  preachers,  and.  seven 
hundred  and  sixty  members,  the  beginning  of  that  great 
host,  now  a  hundred  thousand  strong,  led  by  four  hund- 
red itinerants. 

Before  the  close  of  our  period,  Benjamin  Young, 
brother  of  Jacob  Young,  was  dispatched  (1804)  as  a 
missionary  to  Illinois,  which  had  but  about  two  hund- 
red and  fifteen  inhabitants  in  1800,  and  was  not  ad- 
mitted as  a  state  of  the  Union  till  fourteen  years  after 
Young's  appointment.  We  have  some  glimpses  of  the 
pioneer's  trials  in  a  letter  from  him,  dated  Indiana  Ter- 
ritory, Randolph  County,  June  1,  1804,  in  which  he 
says  :  "  I  am  and  have  been  very  sickly  since  I  have 
been  here,  but  I  hope  I  am  on  the  mend.  ...  As  for 
the  >tate  of  religion,  it  is  bad.  I  have  formed  a  circuit, 
and  five  classes  of  fifty  members.  In  some  places 
there  is  a  revival.  About  twenty  have  professed  to  be 
converted  since  I  came,  but  the  bulk  of  the  people  are 
given  up  to  wickedness  of  every  kind.  Of  all  places 
it  is  the  worst  for  stealing,  fighting,  and  lying.  3Iy 
soul,  come  not  into  their  secret  places  !  I  met  with  great 
difficulties  in  coming  to  this  country.  I  lost  my  horse 
in  the  wilderness,  fifty  miles  from  any  settlement,  and 
had  t.  walk  in  and  hire  a  horse  to  go  and  find  mine. 

i     Bowman'e  <  ientenarj  >•  rmon. 
3<  Key.  G.  L.  Curtis,  I  Fork,  Oct  11,  1866. 


154  HISTORY    OF    THE 

The  Kickapoo  Indians  had  stolen  him,  and  Mr.  Reed's, 
who  was  with  me,  but  we  got  them  with  cost  and 
trouble.  When  I  got  to  Kaskaskia  I  preached  there, 
but  they  made  me  pay  two  dollars  for  the  room,  and 
twenty  shillings  for  two  days'  board.  I  ran  out  cf 
money,  and  had  to  sell  my  books.  At  last  the  people 
began  to  help  me  ;  but  I  thank  God  I  can  make  out, 
though  I  have  suffered  with  cold.  Last  winter  my 
clothes  were  thin  and  worn  out,  and  I  had  no  money  to 
buy  more.  But  I  trust  I  am  in  the  way  to  heaven,  and 
I  know  my  heart  is  engaged  in  the  work  of  God.  .  . 
As  I  do  not  expect  to  come  to  Conference,  I  may  not  see 
you  again  in  this  life,  but  I  hope  to  meet  you  in  a  better 
world."35  In  the  first  year  he  returned  sixty-seven 
Church  members  from  its  sparse  population. 

Methodism  had  already  attempted  to  erect  its  standard 
as  far  North  as  Michigan.  In  1803  a  local  preacher  by 
the  name  of  Freeman  found  his  way  far  into  the  country, 
and  preached  at  Detroit,  where  he  left  at  least  one 
awakened  soul  who  welcomed  his  successors.  In  1804 
Nathan  Bangs  passed  over  from  Canada  and  sounded 
the  alarm  in  Detroit,  though  without  apparent  suc- 
cess ;  the  place,  woefully  depraved  with  a  conglomerate 
population  of  Indians,  French,  and  immigrants,  was 
subsequently  invaded  again,  from  Canada,  by  William 
Case,  and  soon  after  an  Irish  local  preacher,  William 
Mitchell,  organized  the  first  Methodist  society  in  the 
city,  the  first  in  the  state.  Methodism  was  never  again 
totally  dislodged  from  Michigan,  though  its  progress 
was  slow,  and  no  Protestant  Church  of  any  denomina- 
tion was  erected  within  its  bounds  till  1818.36 

Asbury  made  five  expeditions  to  the  West  in  these 

36  MS.  letter  in  possession  of  Rev.  F.  S.  De  Hass,  Washington  City, 
as  Rev.  E.  II.  Pileher,  in  Northwest.  Adv.,  Sept.  5,  1800. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CUURCU.  L55 

eisrht  years,  though  h'\<  health  was  more  enfeebled,  (lur- 
ing most  of  this  period,  than  in  any  other  portion  of  his 
public  life.  It  broke  down  on  his  first  trip  in  1797,  and 
be  was  compelled  to  return  before  completing  his  tour; 
but  he  had  scaled  the  Alleghanies  from  Xorth  Carolina. 
By  the  twenty-fourth  of  March  he  was  in  the  thickest 
difficulties  of  the  mountains.  "  Hard  necessity,"  he 
Bays,  "made  us  move  forward.  The  western  branch  of 
Toe  River,  that  comes  down  from  the  Yellow  Mountain, 
was  rapidly  filling,  and  was  rocky,  rolling,  and  roaring 
like  the  sea,  yet  we  were  compelled  to  cross  it  several 
times.  When  we  came  to  ascend  the  mountain  we  had 
a  skirmish  of  rain,  thunder,  and  lightning;  it  was  dis- 
tant ;  it  was  mercy.  I  found  hard  work  to  ride  where 
Thomas  White  had  driven  his  wagon,  for  which  he 
deserves  a  place  in  my  journal,  and  a  premium  from  the 
When  we  had  ascended  the  summit  of  the  mount- 
ain we  found  it  so  rich  and  miry,  that  it  was  wdth  great 
difficulty  we  could  ride  along;  but  I  was  wrapped  up 
in  heavy,  wet  garments,  and  unable  to  walk  through 
weakness  of  body,  so  we  had  it,  pitch,  slide,  and  drive 
to  the  bottom.  We  then  came  upon  the  drains  and 
branches  of  Great  Toe  River.  From  Fisher's  we  had  to 
ride  through  what  I  called  the  'shades  of  death,'  four 
miles  to  Miller's.  Here  we  had  to  cope  with  Toe  River, 
and  near  the  house  came  into  deep  water.  My  horse 
drove  to  the  opposite  bank  above  the  landing,  and 
locto  f  his  feet  in  a  root,  or  something  like  it, 

but  freed  himself  At  last  we  made  the  house.  The 
people  received  us  kindly,  and  gave  us  such  things 
they  had.  We  could  only  partially  dry  our  garments. 
We  heard  heavy  tidings  of  a  deep  rocky  ford  yet  to  be 
passed  in  our  way  across  Toe  River.w 
On  the  )ic\'  'lav  hi-  anticipations  were  verified. 
D— 11 


156  HISTORY    OF    THE 

"  Three  brave  young  Dutchmen  "  escorted  him.  They 
had  to  break  their  way  through  woods  and  ravines  to 
escape  dangerous  fords,  and  on  the  following  day  he 
writes,  "  I  was  met  by  our  brethren,  Kobler,  Burke,  and 
Page.  I  rested  on  Monday  and  Tuesday  to  take  breath 
and  medicine.  I  find  myself  so  hardly  put  to  it  at  times 
that  I  can  only  journalize  a  little.  We  concluded,  as 
there  are  not  proper  stations  on  the  Cumberland  path, 
it  will  not  do  for  me  to  lodge  on  the  ground ;  the  gen- 
eral opinion  is  against  it.  We  are  to  try  to  go  to  Ken- 
tucky next  week." 

He  was  now  suffering  terribly  from  intermittent  fever, 
the  attacks  of  which  sometimes  lasted  thirty  hours.  It 
had  become  almost  chronic,  for  he  had  not  rested  enough 
at  any  one  place  to  subdue  it.  Some  of  the  preachers 
met  him  in  Tennessee,  and,  valuing  his  life  more  than 
their  own  local  advantage  from  his  visit,  insisted  upon 
his  immediate  return  to  the  East  as  his  only  safety.  He 
saw  that  he  "  must  give  up  the  cause,"  and  "  make  the 
best  of  his  way  to  Baltimore."  "Live  or  die,"  he  writes 
on  the  29th,  "I  must  ride.  After  all  the  disappoint- 
ments, perhaps  every  purpose  is  answered  but  one.  I 
have  sent  Brother  Kobler  to  take  charge  of  Kentucky 
and  Cumberland,  by  visiting  the  whole  every  quarter. 
Brother  Bird  I  have  stationed  in  the  Holston  District. 
I  have  written  a  circumstantial  letter  to  Brother  Poy- 
thress  and  the  Kentucky  Conference.  I  have  made  a 
plan  for  the  stationing  of  the  preachers,  at  least  those  of 
any  standing,  and  now  I  will  make  the  best  of  my  way 
to  Baltimore." 

The  backward  journey  was  severe,  for,  besides  his  ill 
health,  he  had  sometimes  to  ride  "thirty  miles  to  get  to 
a  house."  "I  must,"  he  says,  "be  made  perfect  through 
sufferings."     He  took  refuge  at  hst  in  a  "retreat"  near 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  lo7 

Baltimore,  but  in  a  few  weeks  be  was  abroad  on  bis 
usual  northward  route.  In  tbe  latter  part  of  tbe  year, 
however,  be  was  compelled,  as  we  have  seen,  to  lay  by 
in  Virginia,  and  give  his  work  chiefly  into  the  bands 
of  Lee. 

In  September,  1800,  he  was  again  on  his  way  west- 
ward, with  Whatcoat  and  M'Kendree,  for  tbe  purpose 
of  introducing  the  latter  as  chief  of  tbe  great  field.  We 
have  already  briefly  glanced  at  their  expedition.  By 
the  first  of  October  they  were  in  Kentucky,  and  on  the 
fourth  were  at  Betbel,  the  site  of  Poytbress's  academy, 
where  they  held  the  Western  Conference.  What  coat 
and  M'Kendree,  he  says,  "  preached.  I  was  so  dejected 
I  could  say  little,  but  weep.  Sabbath  day  it  rained, 
and  I  kept  at  home.  Here  is  Bethel.  Cokesbury  in 
miniature,  eighty  by  tbirty  feet,  three  stories,  with  a 
high  roof,  and  finished  below.  Now  we  want  a  fund 
and  an  income  of  three  hundred  per  year  to  carry  it  on, 
without  which  it  will  be  useless.  But  it  is  too  distant 
from  public  places.  Its  being  surrounded  by  the  river 
Kentucky  in  part,  we  now  find  to  be  no  benefit;  thus 
all  our  excellences  are  turned  into  defects.  Perhaps 
Brother  Poythress  and  myself  were  as  much  overseen 
with  this  place  as  Dr.  Coke  was  with  the  seat  of  Cokes- 
bury.  But  all  is  right  that  works  right,  and  all  is  wrong 
that  works  wrong,  and  we  must  be  blamed  by  men  of 
slender  sense  for  consequences  impossible  to  foresee — for 
other  people's  miseonduct.  Sabbath  day,  Monday,  and 
Tuesday,  we  were  shut  up  in  Bethel  with  the  traveling 
and  local  ministry  and  the  trustees  that  could  be  called 
•her.  We  ordained  fourteen  or  fifteen  local  and 
traveling  deacons.  It  was  thought  expedient  to  carry 
the  first  design  of  education  into  execution,  and  that  we 
should  employ  a  man  of  sterling  qualifications,  t<>  Ik 


158  HISTORY    OF    THE 

chosen  by  and  under  the  direction  of  a  select  number  of 
trustees  and  others,  who  should  obligate  themselves  to 
see  him  paid,  and  take  the  profits,  if  any,  arising  from 
the  establishment." 

Besides  Asbury's  companions,  the  only  preachers  at 
the  Conference  were  Burke,  Sale,  Harriman,  and  Lakin. 
Its  journal  covers  not  a  page  of  cap  paper.37  After  the 
session,  still  accompanied  by  Whatcoat  and  M'Kendree, 
Asbury  made  his  way,  through  formidable  difficulties, 
to  Cumberland.  By  the  nineteenth  they  were  at  Nash- 
ville, Tenn.,  where  he  reports  a  congregation  of  a  thou- 
sand people,  in  a  "stone  church,  which,  if  floored,  ceiled, 
and  glazed,  would  be  a  grand  house."  On  the  twen- 
tieth they  reached  the  scene  of  the  camp-meetings,  then 
just  begun  by  the  Magee's  and  their  Presbyterian  asso- 
ciates. All  three  of  the  travelers  preached,  with  extra- 
ordinary interest,  amid  these  novel  circumstances,  near 
Drake's  Creek  Meeting-house.  Two  thousand  people 
were  present  on  Sunday.  Asbury  has  left  us  a  brief 
picture  of  these  first  meetings  of  the  kind.  On  the  21st 
he  says :  "  Yesterday,  and  especially  during  the  night, 
were  witnessed  scenes  of  deep  interest.  In  the  intervals 
between  preaching  the  people  refreshed  themselves  and 
horses,  and  returned  upon  the  ground.  The  stand  was 
in  the  open  air,  embosomed  in  a  wood  of  lofty  beech 
trees.  The  ministers  of  God,  Methodists  and  Presby- 
terians, united  their  labors,  and  mingled  with  the  child- 
like simplicity  of  primitive  times.  Fires  blazing  here 
and  there  dispelled  the  darkness,  and  the  shouts  of  the 
redeemed  captives,  and  the  cries  of  precious  souls  strug- 
gling into  life,  broke  the  silence  of  midnight.  The 
weather  was  delightful,  as  if  heaven  smiled,  while  mercy 
flowed   in  abundant  streams  of  salvation  to  perishing 

37  Rev.  Dr.  Trimble's  Address  at  Ohio  Wesleyan  University,  1860 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUACH.        159 

dinners,  We  suppose  there  were  at  least  thirty  souls 
converted  at  this  meeting.  I  rejoice  that  God  is  visit- 
ing the  sons  of  the  Puritans,  who  are  candid  enough  to 
acknowledge  their  obligations  to  the  Methodists." 

He  turned  his  face  eastward  again.  On  his  way 
toward  Knoxville  he  writes:  "Here  let  me  record  the 
gracious  dealings  of  God  to  my  soul  in  this  journey:  I 
have  had  uncommon  peace  of  mind  and  spiritual  conso- 
lations every  day,  notwithstanding  the  long  rides  I 
have  endured,  and  the  frequent  privations  of  good 
water  and  proper  food  to  which  I  have  been  subjected. 
To  me  the  wilderness  and  the  solitary  places  were  made 
as  the  garden  of  God,  and  as  the  presence-chambers  of 
the  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords." 

The  journey  among  the  mountains  of  East  Tennessee 
was,  however,  to  try  his  utmost  patience.  The  roads 
were  bad,  his  horse  and  chaise  were  upset,  the  latter 
turned  bottom  upward,  and  only  saved  from  being  pre- 
cipitated down  the  steep  rocks  by  the  obstructing  trees  ; 
the  clothing  and  furniture  of  emigrants  were  spread  on 
the  route  from  their  wagons,  which  had  met  with  similar 
accidents.  Asbury  had  but  lately  taken  to  a  vehicle, 
lie  now  writes:  "  We  must  bid  farewell  to  the  chaise; 
this  mode  of  conveyance  by  no  means  suits  the  roads  of 
this  wilderness  ;  we  are  obliged  to  keep  one  behind  the 
carriage,  with  a  strap  to  hold  by  and  prevent  accidents, 
almost  continually.  I  have  health  and  hard  labor,  and 
a  constant  sense  of  the  favor  of  God."  On  the  fonr 
teenth  of  November  he  was  safe  in  North  Carolina,  at 
"  the  foot  of  the  grand  mountain  division  of  South 
Carolina."  lie  had  traveled  in  this  western  excursion 
a  thousand  miles  in  Less  than  two  months. 

On  the  15th  of  September,  1801,  he  wis  again  climb- 
ing the  Alleghanies,  accompanied  by  Nicholas  Snethen. 


160.  HISTORY    OF    THE 

When  they  arrived  at  the  comfortable  shelter  of  the 
late  General  Russell's  mansion,  Asbury  wrote :  "  I  have 
a  partial  restoration  of  health  ;  but  the  fever  returns 
every  morning,  added  to  which,  the  severe  and  constant 
riding,  with  want,  and  generally  irregularity,  of  meals, 
becomes  in  a  great  degree  a  cause  of  sickness.  ^  was 
pleased  to  see  our  local  brethren  come  forty  and  tifty 
miles  to  visit  me.  We  met  with  joy,  and  parted  in 
tears."  By  the  thirtieth  he  was  holding  a  Conference  at 
Ebenezer  in  Tennessee.  "  Our  brethren  in  Kentucky," 
he  says,  "  did  not  attend ;  they  pleaded  the  greatness  of 
the  work  of  God.  Twelve  of  us  sat  in  Conference  three 
days,  and  we  had  not  an  unpleasant  countenance,  nor 
did  we  hear  an  angry  word  ;  and  why  should  it  not 
always  be  thus?  Are  we  not  the  ministers  of  the 
meek  and  lowly,  the  humble  and  holy  Jesus  ?  N. 
Snethen  gave  us  two  sermons.  We  ordained  on  Friday, 
Saturday,  and  Sabbath  day,  and  upon  each  day  I  im- 
proved a  little  on  the  duties  of  ministers.  On  the 
Lord's  day  we  assembled  in  the  woods,  and  made  a 
large  congregation.  My  subject  was  Isa.  lxii,  1.  On 
Friday  and  Saturday  evenings,  and  on  Sabbath  morning, 
there  was  the  noise  of  praise  and  shouting  in  the  meet- 
ing-house. It  is  thought  there  are  twenty-five  souls 
who  have  found  the  Lord ;  they  are  chiefly  the  children 
of  Methodists,  the  children  of  faith  and  of  many  prayers. 
Monday,  October  5,  we  parted  in  great  love.  Our  com- 
pany made  twelve  miles  to  Isaiah  Harrison's,  and  next 
day  reached  the  Warm  Springs  upon  French  Broad 
River." 

He  and  Snethen  spent  about  two  weeks  more,  west 
of  the  mountains,  traveling,  and  preaching  in  cabins  and 
under  trees ;  but  we  have  only  brief  notes  of  their  prog- 
ress.    They  made  their  way  back  to  South  Carolina, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  161 

and  hastened  south,  north,  and  east  as  usual.  In  the 
midsummer  of  1802  the  bishop,  with  Snethen,  was 
again  approaching  the  mountains,  and  writing,  "My 
mind  is  freely  staid  upon  God,  my  guide  in  life  and 
death."  By  the  tenth  of  September  he  says:  "We 
came  upon  Holston.  I  found  the  people  praising  God. 
A  blessed  revival  had  taken  place.  Fourteen  or  fifteen 
times  have  I  toiled  over  the  mighty  mountains,  and 
nearly  twenty  years  have  we  labored  upon  Holston  ; 
and  lo,  the  rage  of  wild  and  Christian  savages  is  tamed, 
and  God  hath  glorified  himself.  Sweet  peace  fills  my 
mind,  and  glorious  prospects  of  Zion's  prospeiity  cheer 
my  heart.  We  have  not,  shall  not,  labor  in  vain.  Not 
unto  us,  not  unto  us,  but  to  Jehovah  be  all  the  glory  on 
earth,  and  in  heaven  forever  !  " 

He  went  preaching  through  Tennessee  till  the  second 
of  October,  when  he  opened  the  Conference  at  Bethel, 
Cumberland.  William  Hodge  and  William  Magee,  Pres- 
byterian ministers  of  camp-meeting  fame,  were  present, 
and  preached  with  "great  fervency."  Thirteen  members 
attended.  It  was  at  this  session  that  they  disposeo 
of  the  sad  case  of  their  old  chieftain,  Poythress,  and  re 
ceived  Jacob  Young,  Ralph  Lotspeich,  Jesse  Walker, 
James  Gwinn,  Leven  Edney,  and  William  Crutchfield, 
some  of  them  still  remembered  as  eminent  evangelists.38 
After  laboring  nearly  two  weeks  longer  in  Tennessee  the 
bishop  returned  through  his  usual  western  trials.  On 
the  eighteenth  he  writes:  "  We  continued  on  until  half 
>ix  o'clock,  then  stopped,  struck  a  fire,  and  en- 
camped under  a  heavy  mountain  dew,  which,  when  the 
wind  shook  the  trees,  fell  like  rain  upon  us.  Brother 
M'Kcndree  made  me  a  tent  of  bifl  own  and  John  Wat- 
son's blankets,  and  happily  Baved  me  IV  »m  taking  cold 
33  Bishop  Morris,  in  West.  Christ  Adv.,  Jan.  8, 1851. 


162  HISTORY    OF    THE 

while  I  slept  about  two  hours  under  my  grand  marquee. 
Brother  M'Kendree  threw  his  cloak  ovtr  the  limb  of  a 
tree,  and  he  and  his  companion  took  shelter  underneath, 
and  slept  also.  I  will  not  be  rash,  I  dare  not  be  rash  it 
my  protestations  against  any  country;  but  I  think  I 
will  never  more  brave  the  wilderness  without  a  tent. 
On  Tuesday,  after  riding  fifty  miles,  a  part  of  ninety- 
three  miles  in  two  days,  we  came  about  eight  o'clock  to 
West  Point." 

Several  times  during  this  journey  the  horses  of  the 
bishop  and  his  traveling  companion  had  perilous  falls 
upon  the  difficult  paths.  By  one  of  them  Snethen  was 
so  injured  that  he  had  to  be  "left,  lame,  upon  the  road." 
Asbury  could  stop  for  no  man  ;  yet,  while  hastening  on, 
he  was  himself  desperately  ill.  He  writes :  "  I  have 
been  sick  for  twenty-three  days.  Ah,  the  tale  of  woe  I 
might  relate !  My  dear  M'Kendree  had  to  lift  me  up 
and  down  from  my  horse  like  a  helpless  child.  For  my 
sickness  and  sufferings  I  conceive  I  am  indebted  to 
sleeping  uncovered  in  the  wilderness.  I  could  not  have 
s.ept  but  for  the  aid  of  laudanum.  Meantime  my  spirits 
and  patience  were  wonderfully  preserved  in  general, 
although  I  was  sometimes  hardly  restrained  from  cry- 
ing, 'Lord,  let  me  die  !'  for  death  hath  no  terrors,  and 
I  could  not  but  reflect  upon  my  escape  from  the  toil  and 
sufferings  of  another  year.  I  had  no  sad  forebodings  of 
the  ills  which  might  befall  the  Church ;  it  is  the  Lord's, 
not  mine.  Nor  did  I  say  to  myself,  What  will  become 
of  wife  and  children  ?  These  I  have  not.  But  what  am 
I  to  learn  from  these  ills  and  aches  ?  '  These  are  coun- 
selors that  feelingly  persuade  me  what  I  am.'  I  am  no 
longer  young  ;  I  cannot  go  out  as  at  other  times.  I 
must  take  the  advice  of  friends  who  say,  'Spare  thyself.' 
I  have  ridden  about  five  thousand  five  hundred  miles; 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  163 

and  in  the  midsl  of  all  I  am  comforted  with  the  pros- 
pects of  the  Western  Conference.  We  have  added 
three  thousand  members  this  year,  have  formed  Cum- 
berland into  a  district,  and  have  sent  a  missionary  to 
the  Natchez."  He  reaches  South  Carolina  again,  having 
completed  six  thousand  miles  of  travel  in  about  a  year 
and  a  quarter. 

In  August,  1803,  we  find  him  pushing  westward  of 
I  he  Pennsylvania  Alleghanies.  He  passed  through  the 
Redstone  settlement,  to  "which  he  gave  the  preference 
over  almost  any  in  America"  for  its  "good  soil,  lofty 
timber,  iron  and  coal,"  and  reached  Pittsburgh,  where 
he  preached  for  the  first  time.  Through  Northwestern 
Virginia  he  penetrated  into  Ohio,  his  first  visit  there. 
On  the  24th  of  September  he  was  at  Chilicothe,  the 
guest  of  Governor  Tiffin,  and  preached  in  the  Court- 
house. Before  the  month  was  ended  he  had  passed  into 
Kentucky,  and  on  the  first  of  October  was  preaching, 
with  Barnabas  M'Henry,  at  Mount  Gerizim,  near  Cyn- 
thiana,  where,  on  Sunday,  he  proclaimed  his  message  in 
the  woods  to  about  two  thousand  people,  and  on  the  next 
day,  the  third,  "we  entered,"  he  says,  "fully  upon  our 
Conference  work ;  but  I  had  to  preach  nevertheless.  We 
had  preaching  every  day ;  and  the  people  continued 
singing  and  prayer,  night  and  day,  with  little  intermis- 
sion. On  Wednesday  the  meeting  closed.  We  hope 
there  were  twenty  souls  converted  to  God,  besides  five 
who  are  reported  to  have  been  converted  at  a  family 
meeting.  Our  Conference  ended  on  Thursday  the  0th. 
I  found  my  mind  devoutly  fixed  on  God.  I  accom- 
plished two  things  in  Conference:  namely,  1.  Formal 
the  Ohio  circuits  into  a  district;  2.  Sent  two  mis- 
sionaries to  Natchez,  and  one  to  the  Illinois."  We 
have  had  a  transient  view,  tin-  best  we  can  now 


164  HISTORY    OF    THE 

of  this  session  in  Jacob  Young's  account  oi  it.  Tl  e 
bishop  and  Snethen  hastened  on  through  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee.  On  reaching  Claiborne  Court-house,  in 
the  latter,  after  a  desperate  day's  travel,  he  gives  a 
fuller  than  usual  detail  of  the  life  of  the  times  in  the 
West,  and  of  his  episcopal  comforts  and  dignities  there. 
"  What  a  road  have  we  passed ! "  he  exclaims,  "  cer- 
tainly the  worst  on  the  whole  continent,  even  in  the 
best  weather;  yet,  bad  as  it  was,  there  were  four  or 
live  hundred  crossing  the  rude  hills  while  we  were. 
I  was  powerfully  struck  with  the  consideration,  that 
there  were  at  least  as  many  thousand  emigrants  annually 
from  east  to  west :  we  must  take  care  to  send  preachers 
after  these  people.  We  have  made  one  thousand  and 
eighty  miles  from  Philadelphia ;  and  now,  what  a  detail 
of  sufferings  might  I  give,  fatiguing  to  me  to  write,  and 
perhaps  to  my  friends  to  read !  A  man  who  is  well 
mounted  will  scorn  to  complain  of  the  roads,  when  he 
sees  men,  women,  and  children,  almost  naked,  paddling 
bare-foot  and  bare-legged  along,  or  laboring  up  the 
rocky  hills,  while  those  who  are  best  off  have  only  a 
horse  for  two  or  three  children  to  ride  at  once.  If 
these  adventurers  have  little  or  nothing  to  eat,  it  is  no 
extraordinary  circumstance;  and  not  uncommon  to  en- 
camp in  the  wet  woods  after  night — in  the  mountains  it 
does  not  rain,  but  pours.  I  too  have  my  sufferings, 
perhaps  peculiar  to  myself:  pain  and  temptation;  the 
one  of  the  body,  and  the  other  of  the  spirit ;  no  room  to 
retire  to — that  in  which  you  sit  common  to  all,  crowded 
with  women  and  children,  the  fire  occupied  by  cooking, 
much  and  long-loved  solitude  not  to  be  found,  unless 
you  choose  to  run  into  the  rain  in  the  woods :  six  months 
in  the  year  I  have  had,  for  thirty-two  years,  occasion- 
ally, to  submit  to  what  will  never  be  agreeable  to  me ; 


MKIlloniST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         165 

but  the  people,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  among  the 
kindest  Bonis  in  the  world.  Yet  kindness  will  not  make 
:i  crowded  log-cabin,  twelve  feet  by  ten,  agreeable: 
without  are  cold  and  rain;  and  within,  six  adults,  and 
•is  many  children,  one  of  which  is  all  motion;  the  dogs, 
too,  rau»t  sometimes  be  admitted.  On  Saturday,  at  Felix 
Ernest's,  I  found  that  among  my  other  trials  I  had  taken 
the  itch ;  and,  considering  the  filthy  houses  and  filthy 
beds  I  have  met  with,  in  coming  from  the  Kentucky 
Conference,  it  is  perhaps  strange  that  I  have  not  caught 
it  twenty  times:  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  any  security 
against  it.  but  by  sleeping  in  a  brimstone  shirt — poor 
bishop  !  But  we  must  bear  it  for  the  elect's  sake.  My 
soul  is  tranquil,  the  air  is  pure,  and  the  house  of  God  is 
near;  and  Jehovah  is  nearer." 

As  he  hastened  onward  he  passed  two  of  the  new 
"camp-grounds  of  the  Methodists  and  Presbyterians;" 
they  "made,"  he  says,  "the  country  look  like  the  Holy 
Land."  On  reaching  Xorth  Carolina  he  writes :  "  Once 
more  I  have  escaped  from  filth,  fleas,  rattlesnakes,  hills, 
mountains,  rocks,  and  rivers  :  farewell,  western  world, 
for  a  while!"  Asbury  considered  "cleanliness  next  to 
godliness ;"  in  his  habits  of  dress,  manners,  and  all 
things,  he  was  neat  almost  to  precision ;  no  one  could 
be  more  at  home  than  he  in  the  opulent  circles  of 
Perry  and  Rembert  Halls,  the  mansions  of  Russell, 
Bassett,  and  Lippett ;  but  his  preachers  were  suffer- 
ing bravely  the  hardships  of  the  frontier,  and,  if  his 
presence  was  not  absolutely  necessary  for  their  eccle- 
siastical affairs,  .-till  he  willingly  shared  their  trials 
for  the  moral  advantage  of  his  example.  Under  its 
influences  some  of  the  noblest  men  of  tlie  ministry 
plunged  into  these  wildernesses  to  build  up  their  Chris- 
tian civilization.     His  example  was  hardly  Less  import- 


166  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ant  than  his  administrative  ability  in  these  early  days 
of  his  Church. 

There  were,  in  1804,  nearly  eleven  thousand  nine 
hundred  (11,877)  Methodists,  and  nearly  fifty  (46) 
preachers,  reported  in  the  Western  Conference.39  It  com- 
prised four  districts  and  twenty-five  circuits.  These 
statistics  do  not  include,  however,  all  the  growing 
societies  of  Western  Pennsylvania  and  Western  Vir- 
ginia, which  have  been  comprised  in  this  survey  of  West- 
ern Methodism,  for,  in  defining  the  West,  I  have  regarded 
neither  Conference  nor  state  lines,  but  the  natural  geo- 
graphical boundaries  of  the  country.  The  Monongahela 
and  Greenbrier  Districts,  taking  in  the  Redstone  and 
Greenbrier  regions,  had  now  nearly  three  thousand  five 
hundred  (3,438)  Methodists  and  twenty-six  preachers  on 
fourteen  circuits.  These,  added  to  the  statistics  of  the 
Western  Conference,would  give  the  denomination, west  of 
the  Mountains,  six  districts,  thirty-nine  circuits,  seventy 
two  preachers,  and  more  than  fifteen  thousand  three 
hundred  (15,315)  members;  an  estimate  which  still  leaves 
out  many  Methodists  beyond  the  Blue  Ridge.  It  shows, 
however,  remarkable  prosperity  for  a  newly  and  sparsely 
settled  country.  The  Church  had  now  been  planted  in 
Ohio,  Illinois,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi,  and 
Methodist  itinerants  were  preaching  the  gospel  from 
Pittsburgh  to  Natchez.  Western  Methodism  had  gained 
in  these  last  eight  years  two  districts,  sixteen  circuits, 
thirty-six  preachers,  and  about  eight  thousand  eight 
hundred  members.  It  witnessed  a.^ady  the  presage  of 
its  later  unparalleled  triumphs. 

39  See  Minutes  of  1805,  whieh  give  the  statistics  of  the  Western  Con- 
ference  for  1804. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  167 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE   GENERAL   CONFERENCES   OF   1800  AND  1804. 

Joke  returns  to  America  —  Session  of  1800  —  Ordination  of  Whatcoat 

—  Accounts  of  the  Conference  —  Lee  —  Coke  —  Asbury  -'Allow- 
ance" to  Preachers  —  Other  Provisions  —  Auticipatory  Aleasures  — 
Richard  Allen,  the  first  African  ordained  in  the  Church  — Antislavery 
Enactments  —  William  Onnond  against  Slavery—  Leading  Members 
follow  his  Example —Additions  to  the  Law  of  the  Church  on  the 
Subject  —  Religious  Excitement  —  Catherine  Bruff  (Catherine  En- 
nalls)  — Coke  revisits  the  United  States  —  General  Conference  of 
1804  —  Its  Members  —  Unequal  Representation  —  Necessity  of  a  Dele- 
gated General  Conference  —  Revision  and  Changes  of  the  Discipline 

—  Important  Declaration  on  the  National  Sovereignty  —  Slavery 
again  Discussed  —  The  Adjournment. 

Two  more  General  Conferences  pertain  to  our  present 
period,  the  sessions  of  1800  and  1804. 

Coke,  since  his  last  departure  from  America,  in 
1797,  had  been  laboring,  with  his  usual  energy, 
in  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  England.  Asbury  and  the 
Virginia  Conference  had  remitted,  as  far  as  they  were 
able,  the  obligation  of  his  pledge  to  serve  the  American 
Church.  The  English,  and  especially  the  Irish,  Confer- 
ences entreated  for  a  continued  share  in  his  labors. 
"They  saw  in  him,"  says  their  historian,  "the  spirit  of 
raiss:onary  enterprise  combined  with  a  perfect  knowl- 
edge of  the  details  of  the  work,  together  with  a  quench- 
zeal,  which  was  altogether  marvelous.  They  clearly 
perceived  that  the  Methodism  of  England  needed  Midi 
B  man,  and  Bought  to  reclaim  him."1  They  now  sent 
with  him,  to  America,  letter-  praying  for  the  repeal  of 
•Smith's  "History  of  Methodtem,"  ii,  S06. 


168  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

his  pledge.  It  was  his  eighth  voyage  to  tin.  new  world. 
His  journals  of  the  visit  are  lost ;  we  only  know  that  he 
made  his  customary  inspection  of  the  West  India  Mis- 
sions, and  arrived  at  Baltimore  in  time  for  the  session 
of  the  Conference. 

It  began  on  Tuesday,  May  6,  1800.a  Its  published 
journals  give  no  roll  of  its  members,  and  the  briefest 
possible  outline  of  its  proceedings  ;  but,  happily,  a  spec- 
tator of  the  occasion  has  recorded  some  account  of  it. 
He  says:  "The  General  Conference  of  1800  was  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of  our  Church.  The 
revival  at  that  time  was  the  greatest  that  has  ever  oc- 
curred during  the  session  of  any  General  Conference. 
I  was  a  visitor,  and  had  peculiar  opportunities  to  witness 
the  wonderful  scenes  that  created  joy  on  earth  and  in 
heaven.  All  the  accounts  we  have  had  are  extremely 
meager.  As  I  have  been  preserved,  while  all  who  were 
actors  in  those  scenes  are  gone,  I  will  describe  what  1 
heard  and  saw  at  that  time.  It  is  not  generally  known 
that  the  greatest  displays  of  divine  power,  and  the  most 
numerous  conversions,  were  in  private  houses,  in  prayer- 
meetings.  And  yet  the  preaching  was  highly  honored 
of  God,  for  the  ministers  were  endued  with  power  from 
on  high.  I  kept  in  my  journal  a  particular  account  of 
their  texts  and  themes.  The  General  Conference  com- 
menced its  session  on  Tuesday,  May  6,  in  Light-street, 
Baltimore.  All  the  General  Conferences,  from  the 
famous  Christmas  Conference  to  the  first  delegated 
Conference,  were  held  in  Baltimore.  Baltimore  was  a 
small  place  to  what  it  is  now.  We  then  called  it  Bal- 
timore town.  The  Methodists  had  two  church  edifices, 
one  in  Light-street,  the  other  in  Oldtown,  which  was  in 
the  suburbs.  This  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen 
2  Journal*  of  the  Gen.  Conf.  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  vol.  i,  p.  31. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        169 

a  body  of  Methodist  preachers ;  only  now  and  then 
one  wended  his  way  to  my  father's  neighborhood. 
The  Conference  was  then  composed  of  all  the  traveling 
elders.  The  strong  men  of  Methodism  were  there,  and 
such  a  noble  class  of  men  I  had  never  beheld.  There 
were  Philip  Bruce,  Jesse  Lee,  George  Roberts,  John 
Bloodgood,  William  P.  Chandler,  John  M'Claskey, 
Ezekiel  Cooper,  Nicholas  Snethen,  Thomas  Morrell, 
Joseph  Totten,  Lawrence  M'C<>mbs,  Thomas  F.  Sar- 
gent, William  Burke,  William  M'Kendree,  and  others. 
The^e  were  representative  men,  who  laid  the  broad 
foundations  of  Methodism  east,  west,  north,  and 
>outh.  What  a  privilege  to  hear  them  debate,  and 
listen  to  their  sermons  !  Such  was  the  health  of 
Bishop  Asbury  that  he  thought  of  resigning;  but  the 
Conference,  in  order  to  relieve  him,  authorized  him 
to  take  an  elder  as  a  traveling  companion.  They 
elected  Richard  Whatcoat  bishop,  he  having  a  majority 
of  four  votes  over  Jesse  Lee.  I  witnessed  the  excite- 
ment attending  the  different  ballotings.  The  first,  no 
election;  the  second,  a  tie;  the  third,  Richard  Whatcoat 
was  elected." ' 

The  same  authority  grives  a  momentary  view  of  the 
ordination  Sabbath.  u  Sunday,  the  18tb,  was  a  great 
day  in  Baltimore  among  the  Methodists.  The  ordina- 
tion sermon  was  preached  by  Rev.  Thomas  Coke,  LL  D., 
in  Light-street  Church.  Crowds  at  an  early  hour 
thronged  the  temple.  The  doctor  preached  from  Rev. 
ii,  8:  'And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  at  Smyrna 
write ;  These  tilings  saith  the  First  and  the  Last,  which 
wrw;  dead  and  is  alive,'  etc.  After  the  sermon,  which 
-  adapted  to  the  occasion,  Richard  Whatcoat  was  or- 
dained a  bishop  in  the  Church  of  God  by  the  imposition 
*  Boehm'fl  •'  Reminj 


x70  HISTGKY    OF    THE 

of  the  hands  of  Dr.  Coke  and  Bishop  Asbury,  assisted 
by  several  elders.  Never  were  holy  hands  laid  upon  a 
holier  head.  In  those  days  we  went  l  out  into  the  high- 
ways and  hedges  and  compelled  them  to  come  in. 
That  afternoon  Jesse  Lee  preached  in  the  market-house 
on  Howard's  Hill,  from  John  xvii,  3 :  '  And  this  is  life 
eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee  the  only  true  God 
and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  has  sent.'  The  Lord 
was  there  in  a  powerful  manner.  Several  were  con- 
verted." 

Asbury  records  a  single  paragraph  of  but  fifteen  lines 
respecting  the  session.  "Two  days,"  he  says,  "were 
spent  in  considering  about  Dr.  Coke's  return  to  Europe, 
part  of  two  days  on  Richard  Whatcoat  for  a  bishop, 
and  one  day  in  raising  the  salary  of  the  itinerant  preach- 
ers from  sixty-four  to  eighty  dollars  per  year.  We  had 
one  hundred  and  sixteen  members  present.  The  unction 
that  attended  the  word  was  great ;  more  than  one  hund- 
red souls,  at  different  times  and  places,  professed  con- 
version during  the  Conference.  I  was  weary,  but  sat 
very  close  in  Conference.  My  health  is  better  than 
when  we  began."  Whatcoat  writes  but  nine  lines 
about  it.  He  says :  "  We  had  a  most  blessed  time  and 
much  preaching,  fervent  prayers,  and  strong  exhorta- 
tions through  the  city,  while  the  high  praises  of  our 
gracious  God  reverberated  from  street  to  street,  and 
from  house  to  house,  which  greatly  alarmed  the  citizens. 
It  was  thought  that  not  less  than  two  hundred  were 
converted  during  the  sitting  of  our  Conference." 4 

Lee  writes,  that  "  such  a  time  of  refreshing  from  the 

presence  of  the  Lord  has  not  been  felt  in  that  town  for 

some  years."5     He  seems  to  have  suffered  little  from 

his  defeat  in  the  episcopal  election,  for  he  was  mean- 

*  Memoir,  p.  30.  5  Lee's  History,  p.  271. 


MKTHODIST    EPISCOl AL    CHURCH.         171 

while  as  active  as  ever  in  the  stirring  scenes  around  him, 
preaching  with  great  power  in  the  churches  and  the 
streets.  In  reviewing  the  occasion  he  says,  "  I  believe 
we  never  had  so  good  a  General  Conference  before. 
We  had  the  greatest  speaking  and  the  greatest  union 
of  affections  that  we  ever  had  on  a  like  occasion."0 

Boehm  says :  "  During  this  Conference  I  became  ac- 
quainted with  many  choice  spirits,  both  among  the 
ministry  and  laity ;  among  the  rest  Dr.  Thomas  Coke. 
I  not  only  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  doctor  preach 
and  make  motions  and  speeches  in  the  Conference,  but 
also  of  dining  with  him  and  Bishop  Asbury.  The  doctor 
was  a  short  man,  and  rather  corpulent.  He  had  a  beau- 
tiful face,  and  it  was  full  of  expression,  a  sweet  smile 
often  playing  over  his  features.  His  eyes  were  dark, 
and  his  look  very  piercing.  His  voice  was  soft  and  full 
of  melody,  unless  raised  to  a  very  high  pitch,  and  then 
it  was  harsh,  discordant,  and  squeaking.  His  conversa- 
tional powers  were  great.  He  was  very  entertaining. 
He  did  a  noble  work  for  American  Methodism,  and 
should  ever  be  remembered  with  the  liveliest  sentiments 
of  gratitude.  He  sleeps  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  *  till  the 
sea  give  up  its  dead.' " 

Nicholas  Snethen  was  elected  secretary.  Asbury, 
worn  out  by  labor  and  disease,  had  designed  to  resign 
his  office;  but  the  Conference  could  not  think  of  so  serious 
a  revolution  in  their  affairs,  for  such  would  certainly  have 
been  the  loss  of  Asbury's  episcopal  services.  They  not 
only  unanimously  voted  him  their  thanks,  and  "  en- 
treated" him  to  continue  the  "superintendency  "  as  "far 

•  Lee's  Life  of  Lee,  p.  380.  His  biographer,  however,  supposes  he 
"felt  severely"  bis  treatment  by  some  of  the  preachers,  especially  by 
Lyell,  an  influential  member,   who  afterward  became  a  Protestan 

'■     •■  York.     P. 

D— 12  * 


172  HISTORY    OF    THE 

as  his  strength  would  permit,"  but,  besides  electing 
"What coat  as  his  coadjutor,  authorized  him  to  select  a 
"  traveling  companion "  from  the  ministry,  a  relief 
which  was  continued  during  his  remaining  life.  They 
also  so  far  conceded  to  the  prayer  of  the  British  and 
Irish  Conferences  for  the  services  of  Coke  as  to  allow  of 
his  return  to  them,  on  condition  that  "  he  come  back  to 
America  as  soon  as  his  business  will  allow,  but  certainly 
by  the  next  General  Conference."  They  were  two  days 
debating  this  subject.  "  We  have  lent  the  doctor  to 
you,"  they  wrote,  "  for  a  season." 

The  "allowance"  of  sixty-four  dollars  per  year,  be- 
sides traveling  expenses,  to  the  preachers,  was  now 
found  entirely  inadequate  to  their  support,  as  prices 
had  advanced  nearly  fifty  per  cent,  on  almost  "  every 
article  of  their  consumption ;"  they  were  therefore  al- 
lowed eighty  dollars,  their  wives  or  widows  the  same 
amount,  and  each  child,  under  seven  years  old,  sixteen 
dollars,  each  over  seven,  and  under  fourteen,  twenty- 
four.  Their  children  over  fourteen  had  no  allowance. 
These  pittances  were  the  "  salaries "  of  Methodist 
preachers  and  their  families  down  to  the  year  1816, 
when  the  sum  was  raised  to  one  hundred  dollars  a  year, 
except  for  children,  to  whom  the  old  rule  still  applied. 
The  provision  of  furnished  parsonages  was  urgently 
recommended,  and  some  other  financial  arrangements 
devised,  particularly  the  "Preachers'  Fund,"  for  the 
relief  of  the  suffering  ministry.  They  repealed  the  rule 
requiring  a  report  of  all  donations  given  by  their  friends. 
They  enacted  that  each  Annual  Conference  should  raise 
its  proportion  of  the  expenses  of  the  bishops,  which  had 
hitherto  been  met,  quite  casually,  by  private  donations 
and  occasional  collections  in  particular  churches. 

The  whole  Church  was  now  divided  into  seven  An 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         173 

aual  Conferences.  These  bodies  were  required  to  keep 
journals,  and  submit  them  to  the  examination  of  the 
General  Conference.  It  was  enacted  that  no  preacher 
should  be  a  member  of  the  latter  who  had  not  traveled 
tour  years,  and  been  received  into  full  membership. 
The  power  of  the  preacher  over  accused  members  of 
the  Church  was  amended,  so  that  the  members  trying 
the  accused  were  to  pronounce  him  guilty  or  innocent 
according  to  the  evidence,  the  preacher  retaining  the 
right  to  pronounce  sentence,  and  also,  if  he  dissented 
from  the  committee,  to  appeal  the  case  to  the  Quarterly 
Conference.     Ezekiel  Cooper  was  elected  Book  Agent. 

There  are  some  significant  indications  in  the  proceed- 
ings of  this  session  which  have  hitherto  been  unnoticed 
by  the  historians  of  the  Church.  On  the  second  day  a 
motion  was  introduced  to  authorize  the  Annual  Confer- 
ences to  elect  their  own  presiding  elders.  It  was  de- 
bated, but  was  the  beginning  of  a  controversy  which, 
prevailed  for  years  in  the  Conference,  and  through- 
out the  Church.  It  was  attempted  also  to  make 
local  preachers  eligible  to  ordination  as  elders.  The 
motion  was  adopted,  but  reconsidered  and  "with- 
drawn." William  Ormond,  who  appears  to  have 
been    the    noblest    "  radical "    of    the    body,7    tried    it 

7  He  died  before  the  next  General  Conference.  His  brethren  say  01 
him:  "A  native  of  North  Carolina,  of  a  respectable  family,  and  hie  cir 
enmstancea  in  life  sufficient,  with  care  and  improvement,  to  have  af- 
forded him  ample  rapport  Be  was  affectionate,  fervent,  and  faithful, 
gracious,  and  gifted.  He  bad  a  high  sense  of  tin-  rights  of  men.  He 
labored  and  traveled  extensively  from  Maryland,  in  various  circuit-  in 
Virginia,  North  and  South  Carolina,  and  eveo  \<>  Georgia,  lb-  died 
happy  in  God,  declaring  with  hie  latest  breath,  hia  sou]  enjoyed  pi 

.  victory,  victory,  complete  victory,  lb-  lias  left  a  legacy  to  the 
Conference,  and  another  to  build  a  house  for  <..,ii  in  the  neighborhood 
of  hi>  nativity.  So  Lived  and  so  died  William  Ormond.  Be  fell  a  martyr 
to  his  work  during  the  yellow  fever  in  Norfolk  in  1808."    M  n  > 

4 


174  HISTORY    OF    THE 

again,  but  failed.  A  motion  to  reorganize  the  General 
Conference,  as  a  delegated  body,  was  defeated  by  "a 
great  majority ;"  but  was  an  anticipation  of  a  coming 
change.  Coke  attempted,  without  success,  to  obtain  a 
rule  by  which  the  new  bishop,  in  the  absence  of  Asbury, 
should  be  required  to  read  his  appointments  of  preach- 
ers in  the  Annual  Conferences,  "  to  hear  what  the  Con- 
ference may  have  to  say  on  each  station,"  in  accordance 
with  the  English  example.  Joshua  Wells  was  defeated 
in  a  motion  to  provide  a  committee  of  three  or  four 
elders,  to  be  chosen  by  each  Annual  Conference,  to  aid 
the  new  bishop  in  making  the  appointments,  an  antici- 
pation of  a  later  function  of  the  presiding  elders.  The 
motion  was  twice  repeated  by  other  members,  but  was 
negatived.  These  good  men  were  fearful  of  innovations 
which  have  since  become  indispensable  and  most  salu- 
tary in  the  Methodist  system. 

A  rule  was  recorded  allowing  the  bishops  to  ordain 
"  local  deacons  of  our  African  brethren  in  places  where 
they  have  built  a  house  for  the  worship  of  God."  Nine 
years  later,  Lee  says  that  this  concession  was  but  "  little 
known,"  and  had  never  been  published,  owing  to  South- 
ern opposition.  Richard  Allen,  of  Philadelphia,  (after- 
ward Bishop  Allen,)  was  thus  ordained  on  the  11th  of 
June,  1799,  the  first  colored  preacher  ever  ordained  by 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  But  the  most  striking 
feature  of  the  journals  of  this  session  (unnoticed  by  the 
Church  historians)  is  the  persistent  antislavery  interest 
of  many  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  the  Conference.8 
We  have  seen  that  ever  since  the  Annual  Conference  of 
1780  the  subject  had  been  kept  before  the  Church;  that 
the  first  General   Conference  (1784)  had  courageously 

B  Lee  records  nothing  on  the  subject,  and  Bangs  (though  he  mentions 
the  MS.  Journal  of  the  Conference^  seems  tc  have  merelj  followed  Lee. 


1CETH0DIS1     EPISCOPAL    CHUKCH.         175 

faced  it,  and  that   the  eessio  .   preceding  the  present 

one  declared  itself  *'  more  than  ever  convinced  of  the 
great  evil"  of  slavery.  The  question  was  soon  again 
rife.  Good  William  Onnond  (though  a  Southerner) 
introduced  it  by  moving  that  "  whereas  the  laws  now 
in  force  in  two  or  more  of  the  United  States  pointedly 
prohibit  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  and  the  third 
clause  of  the  ninth  section  of  the  Discipline  forbids 
the  selling  of  slaves,  it  is  evident  that  the  members  of 
the  Methodist  societies  who  own  slaves,  and  remove 
themselves  and  families  to  another  state,  or  to  distant 
parts  of  the  same  state,  and  leave  a  husband  or  a  wife 
behind,  held  in  bondage  by  another  person,  part  man 
and  wife,  which  is  a  violation  of  the  righteous  laws  of 
God,  and  contrary  to  the  peace  and  happiness  of  fami- 
lies. And  it  is  further  observed  that  the  rule  now 
existing  among  us  prevents  our  members  increasing  the 
number  of  their  slaves  by  purchase,  and  tolerates  an 
increase  of  number  by  birth,  which  children  are  often 
given  to  the  enemies  of  the  Methodists.  My  mind  being 
seriously  impressed  with  these  and  several  other  con- 
siderations, I  move  that  this  General  Conference  take 
the  momentous  subject  of  slavery  into  consideration,  and 
make  such  alterations  in  the  old  rule  as  may  be  thought 
proper."9  Stephen  Timmons  moved,  that  if  any  of  oui 
traveling  preachers  marry  persons  holding  slaves,  and 
l hereby  become  slaveholder-,  they  shall  be  excluded  oui 
societies,  unless  they  execute  a  legal  emancipation  ol 
their  slaves,  agreeably  to  the  law-  of  the  stale  wherein 
they  live.  Nicholas  Snethen  moved,  that  this  General 
Confen  !  -  >lve,  that  from  this  time  forth  no  slave- 

holder shall  be  admitted  in!,,  1 1 1 •  -  Methodist   Episcopal 
Church.     John  Blooderood  moved,  tint  all  ne<To  chil 

•  Jounm:- 


176  HISTORY    OF    THE 

dren  belonging  to  members  of  the  Methodist  Society, 
who  shall  be  born  in  slavery  after  the  fourth  day  of 

July,  1800,  shall  be  emancipated:  males  at years, 

and  females  at  years.      James  Lattomas  moved, 

that  every  member  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
holding  slaves,  shall,  within  the  term  of  one  year  from 
the  date  hereof,  give  an  instrument  of  emancipation  for 
all  his  slaves;  and  the  quarterly-meeting  conference 
shall  determine  the  time  the  slave  shall  serve,  if  the 
laws  of  the  state  do  not  expressly  prohibit  their  eman- 
cipation. Ezekiel  Cooper  moved,  that  a  committee  be 
appointed  to  prepare  an  affectionate  address  to  the  Meth- 
odist Societies  in  the  United  States,  stating  the  evils 
of  the  spirit  and  practice  of  slavery,  and  the  necessity 
of  doing  away  the  evil  as  far  as  the  laws  of  the  respective 
states  will  allow ;  and  that  the  said  address  be  laid  be- 
fore the  Conference  for  their  consideration,  and,  if  agreed 
to,  be  signed  by  the  bishops  in  behalf  of  the  Conference. 
William  M'Kendree  moved,  that  this  General  Confer- 
ence direct  the  yearly  Conferences  to  appoint  a  com- 
mittee to  draw  up  proper  addresses  to  the  state  legis- 
latures, from  year  to  year,  for  a  gradual  abolition  of 
slavery.  The  motion  of  Timmons  prevailed.  The  Ad 
dress  to  the  Methodist  Societies,  proposed  by  Cooper, 
was  prepared  by  a  committee  and  sent  forth;  it  provoked 
the  resentment  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  and  led  to  the  suf- 
ferings of  Dougharty.  The  obnoxious  documents  were 
delivered  by  his  colleague,  Harper,  to  the  authorities, 
and  burned  in  presence  of  the  Mayor.  The  result  of 
these  enactments  was  the  following  additions  to  the 
Discipline  at  the  next  session  of  the  Conference,  in 
1804:  "When  any  traveling  preacher  becomes  an 
owner  of  a  slave  or  slaves  by  any  means,  he  shall 
forfeit  his  ministerial   character  in  our  Church,  unless 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CIIURCPT.  177 

ho  execute,  it"  it  be  practicable,  a  legal  emancipation 
of  such  slaves,  conformably  to  the  laws  of  the  state  in 
which  he  lives.  The  Annual  Conferences  are  directed 
to  draw  up  addresses  for  the  gradual  emancipation  of 
the  slaves,  to  the  legislatures  of  those  states  in  which 
no  general  laws  have  been  passed  for  that  purpose, 
These  addresses  shall  urge,  in  the  most  respectful  but 
pointed  manner,  the  necessity  of  a  law  for  the  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  ;  proper  committees  shall  be 
appointed,  by  the  Annual  Conferences,  out  of  the  most 
respectable  of  our  friends,  for  the  conducting  of  the 
business ;  and  the  presiding  elders,  elders,  deacons,  and 
traveling  preachers  shall  procure  as  many  proper  sig- 
natures as  possible  to  the  addresses,  and  give  all  the 
assistance  in  their  power  in  every  respect  to  aid  the 
committees,  and  to  further  this  blessed  undertaking. 
Let  this  be  continued  from  year  to  year  till  the  desired 
end  be  accomplished."  The  Methodist  Church  had  thus 
far  been  the  most  active  antislavery  society  in  the  nation, 
and  in  spite  of  some  reverses  was  still  to  remain  such, 
till  the  barbarous  evil  should  be  swept  away  forever. 

While  these  deliberations  were  going  on  in  the  Con- 
ference, the  whole  city  seemed  swayed  by  religious  ex- 
citement ;  the  great  revival  of  the  times,  which  prevailed 
over  most  of  the  nation,  seemed  to  centralize  there. 
The  churches  could  not  contain  the  people,  and  many 
private  houses  had  to  be  occupied  for  preaching.  I 
have  recorded  the  name  of  Catharine  Ennalls,  (sister  to 
Bassett'fl  wife,)  who  introduced  Methodism  into  Dor- 
chester, Md,  She  had  married  William  Uruif,  a  .Meth- 
odist merchant  of  Baltimore,  and  was  now  most  active 
in  the  extraordinary  scenes  of  this  revival.  Her  house 
was  continually  open  for  preaching;  Lee,  Bruce, 
M'Combs,  Smith,  and  others  preached  there  with  won- 


178  HISTORY    OF    THE 

derful  success.  Boehm,  who,  not  being  a  member  of 
the  Conference,  had  leisure  to  share  in  these  spiritual 
labors,  describes  the  results  as  surprising.  "  The  Lord," 
he  says,  "  is  at  work  in  all  parts  of  the  town."  "  Christ 
the  Lord  is  come  to  reign."  Preachers  and  laymen 
passed  from  Bruff's  house  to  the  churches,  "singing 
the  praises  of  God  along  the  streets.  This  greatly  sur- 
prised the  people,  and  hundreds  came  running  out  of 
their  houses  and  followed  us  till  we  reached  the  house 
of  God.  There  were  wonderful  exhibitions  of  power  as 
we  went  through  the  streets,  and  we  entered  the  house 
singing  and  shouting  the  praises  of  God." 

The  next  day,  after  the  adjournment,  Asbury  was 
preaching  and  pushing  forward  on  his  northern  tour. 
Coke  returned  immediately  to  England,  where  he  began 
to  issue  his  Commentary  in  numbers,  in  1801 ;  he  intro- 
duced Sunday-schools  into  Cornwall,  advocated  the 
Wesleyan  missions,  traveled  largely  in  Ireland  and,  other 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  in  the  autumn  of 
1803  embarked  for  his  final  visit  to  the  United  States. 
Asbury  welcomed  him  heartily,  and  planned  a  course  of 
travel  and  preaching  for  him,  amounting  to  nearly  five 
thousand  miles,  about  three  thousand  of  which  the  tire- 
less apostle  completed  by  the  next  General  Conference, 
which  assembled  in  Light-street  Church,  Baltimore, 
May  the  Vth,  1804.  Coke,  "as  senior  bishop,"  pre- 
sided.10 John  Wilson  was  elected  Secretary.  The  rec- 
ords present,  for  the  first  time,  a  list  of  the  members, 
who  amounted  to  a  hundred  and  twelve ;  five,  however, 
were  "excepted"  as  not  entitled  to  vote,  not  having 
traveled  four  years.  Many  of  the  chief  men  of  the 
ministry  were  there:  among  them  Burke  from  trie  West; 
Pickering  and  Joshua  Taylor  from  the  East;  Garrettson, 
10  Quinn's  "  Life,"  p.  82.     Quinn  was  present. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         17!> 

Ostrander,  Crawford,  Hunt,  and  Sawyer  from  New 
Fork  Conference  ;  from  that  of  Philadelphia,  M'Claskey, 
Sargent,  Ware,  Owen,  Woolsey,  Cooper,  Colbert,  Sharpe, 
Roberts,  Chandler,  and  other  similar  characters;  from 
that  of  Baltimore,  Henry  Willis,  George,  M'Combs, 
Wells,  Henry  Smith,  Qninn,  Hitt,  Snethen,  Watters, 
Fleming ;  from  that  of  Virginia,  Lee,  M'Caine,  Bruce ; 
from  that  of  South  Carolina,  Dongharty  and  Jenkins. 
William  Black,  of  Xova  Scotia,  was  also  present  as  a 
guest,  and  was  allowed  to  speak,  but  not  to  vote,  on 
the  questions  discussed.  The  Philadelphia  Conference 
was  represented  by  thirty-seven,  Baltimore  by  thirty, 
New  England  by  but  four,  and  the  great  Western  field 
by  three.  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore  had  sixty-seven 
of  the  members,  nearly  two  thirds  of  the  whole  Con- 
ference. It  was  obvious  that  a  reorganization  of  the 
body,  on  the  principle  of  delegation,  had  become  neces- 
sary, but  it  was  deferred  to  the  next  session.11 

The  Discipline  was  elaborately  revised,  section  by  sec- 
tion, Coke  reading  item  after  item,  and  the  Conference 
debating  with  no  little  interest.12  Some  changes  were 
made.  The  bishops  were  required  to  allow  the  Annual 
Conferences  to  sit  a  week  at  least ;  hitherto  they  could 
conclude  them  at  their  own  discretion.  They  still  re- 
tained the  right  to  appoint  the  times,  but  not  the  places 
of  the  sessions.  They  were  not  allowed  to  appoint 
preachers  for  more  than  two  successive  years  to  the  same 
appointment;  hitherto  there  had  been  no  restriction, 
and  some  had  been  three  years  in  one  appointment.13 
Asbury  rejoiced  in  the  new  rule  as  a  great  relief  to  the 
appointing  power.  The  title  of  "Quarterly  Meeting 
Conference''  was  given  to  tlie  quarterly  assembly  of  the 

-  Asbury  complains  of  too  mncfa  talk  at  tlii-  session.        "  Lee,  p.  298. 


180  HISTORY    OF    THE 

official  members  of  the  circuits.  Provision  was  made 
for  the  election  of  a  presiding  elder,  to  preside  in  an 
Annual  Conference,  in  case  of  the  absence  of  a  bishop. 
The  law  against  the  marriage  of  Church  members  with 
"unawakened  persons"  was  modified,  the  penalty  being 
no  longer  expulsion,  but  that  the  offender  shall  "be  put 
back  on  trial  for  six  months."  The  "Book  Concern" 
was  ordered  to  be  removed  from  Philadelphia  to  New 
York,  and  Ezekiel  Cooper  was  reappointed  agent,  with 
Daniel  Wilson  as  assistant.  It  was  recommended  to 
the  Annual  Conferences  to  restrain  preachers  from  im- 
prudent publications,  by  requiring  their  manuscripts  to 
be  submitted  to  their  respective  Conferences,  or  to  the 
Book  Committee  at  New  York. 

At  the  organization  of  the  Church,  in  IV  84,  it  was 
the  first  religious  body  of  the  country  to  insert  in  its 
constitutional  law  (in  its  Articles  of  Religion)  a-  re- 
cognition of  the  new  government,  enforcing  patriotism 
on  its  communicants.  A  very  noteworthy  modifica- 
tion (peculiarly  interesting  in  our  day)  was  made  in 
this  article  at  the  present  session.  In  the  original 
article  it  was  affirmed  that  the  "  Congress,"  etc.,  "  are 
the  officers  of  the  United  States  of  America,  accord- 
ing to  the  division  of  power  made  to  them  by  the 
General  Act  of  Confederation,"  etc.,  the  national  con- 
stitution having  not  yet  been  adopted ;  but  the  present 
Conference,  by  a  motion  of  Ezekiel  Cooper,  (a  man  noted 
for  his  sagacity,)  struck  -out  all  allusion  to  the  "Act  of 
Confederation,"  inserting  in  its  stead  "  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,"  etc.,  and  declared  that  "  the  said 
states  are  a  sovereign  and  independent  nation"1*  Meth- 
odism thus  deliberately,  and  in  its  constitutional  law, 
recognized  that  the  "Constitution"  superseded  the  "  Ad. 
14  Thi  italics  are  my  owu. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  181 

t»f  Confederation,"  and  that  the  republic  was  no  longer  a 
confederacy  but  a  nation^  and,  as  such,  supreme  and  sov- 
ereign over  all  its  states.  It  was  at  a  period  of  no  little 
political  agitation  on  the  question  of  state  sovereignty 
that  this  change  was  made:  the  Kentucky  "Resolutions 
of  1798,''  and  those  of  Virginia,  1709,  had  become  the 
basis  of  a  State  Rights  party.  A  contemporary  Method- 
ist preacher  (Henry  Boehm,  still  living)  records  that 
just  previous  to  this  time  "there  was  great  political  ex- 
citement. Federalism  and  Democracy  ran  high.  Such 
was  the  excitement  that  it  separated  families,  and  friends, 
and  members  of  the  Church.  I  was  urged,  on  every 
side,  to  identify  myself  with  one  political  party  or  the 
other,  or  to  express  an  opinion.  I  felt  sad  to  see  what 
influence  this  state  of  feeling  was  producing  in  the 
Church."  It  was  in  such  circumstances  that  the  Meth- 
odisl  Episcopal  Church  took  its  stand  for  the  Xational 
Constitution.  After  the  adoption  of  that  Constitution, 
Methodism  never  doubted  the  ,-<>>r<  ,-<  ;<jn  nationality  ot 
the  republic,  and  never  had  the  unstatesmanlike  folly  lo 
recognize  any  State  right  of  secession,  or  any  sovereignty 
which  is  not  subordinate  to  the  Xational  sovereignty. 
During  the  late  civil  war  it  appealed  to  its  Article, 
as  expressing  the  loyal  duty  of  all  its  people,  and  they 
re- ponded  to  the  appeal  with  a  patriotic  devotion 
surpassed  by  no  other  religious  communion  of  the 
country. 

Thomas  Lyell"  proposed  the  abolition  of  t/«e  pre- 
siding eldership,  but  was  defeated  "after  a  long  de- 
bate." Bruce  introduced  a  motion  for  the  ordination 
of  local  elders,  local  preachers  haying  hitherto  been  ad- 

ntenary  of  American  Methodism,  p.  208.     New  York,  L886\ 
'   The  oame  i-  miapelled,  a-  S\Hl,  Uuroughonl  the  published  jour- 
oaU  of  t'ii^  Beasion, 


182  HISTORY    OF    THE 

mitted  only  to  deacon's  orders;  it  had  a  tie  vote  of  44 
to  44,  and,  on  motion  of  Coke,  was  postponed,  "  as  un 
finished  business,"  till  the  next  General  Conference.  A 
motion  to  elect  another  bishop  was  lost.  The  request  of 
the  British  Conference  for  the  return  of  Coke  was  again 
conceded,  on  condition  that  he  should  at  any  time  be 
recalled  by  the  demand  of  three  Annual  Conferences, 
and,  at  furthest,  should  be  back  in  time  for  the  next 
General  Conference. 

The  subject  of  slavery  was  discussed  as  usual.17 
M'Caine  introduced  it  by  demanding  that  it  be  made 
the  order  of  the  day  for  a  given  time.  At  the  appointed 
time  Bruce  brought  it  up  by  a  petition  from  the  Vir- 
ginia Conference,  when  M'Caine  made  the  motion  "  that 
the  Question  (in  the  Discipline)  concerning  it  should 
run  thus:  'What  shall  be  done  for  the  extirpation  of 
slavery?'"  which  was  "carried."  The  Journal  then 
records  that  "  a  variety  of  motions  were  proposed  on 
the  subject,  and,  after  a  long  conversation,  Freeborn 
Garrettson  moved,  that  the  subject  of  slavery  be  left 
to  the  three  bishops,  to  form  such  a  section  to  suit  the 
Southern  and  Northern  states,  as  they  in  their  wisdom 
may  think  best,  to  be  submitted  to  this  Conference. 
Carried.  Bishop  Asbury  having  refused  to  act  on  the 
last  vote,  the  question  was  left  open.  Ezekiel  Cooper 
moved,  that  a  committee  be  formed,  one  from  each  Con- 
ference, to  take  the  different  motions  and  report  con- 
cerning slavery.  Carried.  George  Dougharty,  Philip 
Bruce,  William  Burke,  Henry  Willis,  Ezekiel  Cooper, 
Freeborn  Garrettson,  and  Thomas  Lyell  were  ap- 
pointed." This  committee  reported  a  long  statute  in 
answer  to  the  new  question,  "  What  shall  be  done 
for  the  extirpation  of  the  evil  of  slavery?"  retaining 
17  BctJi  Lee  and  Bangs,  however,  fail  to  mention  the  fact. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  183 

most  of  the  act  of  1790,  but  with  modifying  phrases;  tho 
adjective  "African"  is  dropped  and  the  word  "slavery" 
alone  retained.  The  clause  providing  for  the  expulsion 
of  a  member  who  should  be  guilty  of  selling  a  slave 
was  qualified  by  the  proviso,  "except  at  the  request  of 
the  slave,  in  cases  of  mercy  and  humanity,  agreeably  to 
the  judgment  of  a  committee  of  the  male  members  ol 
the  society,  appointed  by  the  preacher  who  has  the 
charge  of  the  circuit.'"  It  was  also  provided  that  "if  a 
member  of  our  society  shall  buy  a  slave  with  a  certifi- 
cate of  future  emancipation,  the  terms  of  emancipation 
shall,  notwithstanding,  be  subject  to  the  decision  of  the 
quarterly-meeting  conference."  Methodists  in  the  state- 
of  Xorth  aud  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Tennessee 
were  exempt  from  the  rules  on  the  subject,  on  account 
of  the  stringent  laws  of  these  states.  The  directions,  to 
the  Annual  Conferences,  to  prepare  forms  of  petition  to 
the  state  legislatures  for  emancipation  were  omitted,  and 
it  was  ordered  that  "our  preachers,  from  time  to  time, 
as  occasion  serves,  admonish  and  exhort  all  slaves  to 
render  due  respect  and  obedience  to  the  commands  and 
interests  of  their  respective  masters."  The  treatment 
of  their  petitions  and  addresses  in  the  South,  and 
Dougharty's  Bufferings  at  Charleston,  had  evidently 
somewhat  discouraged  the  preachers;  their  tone  is  more 
I ued,  though  the  law,  in  its  new  form,  is  still  very 
thorough,  imposing  the  penalty  of  expulsion  from  the 
Conference  upon  any  preacher  who  should  ':  become,  by 
any  mean-,  au  owner  of  slaves,"  unless  he  Bhould  "exe- 
cute their  Legal  emancipation,  it'  practicable,  according 
to  the  laws  of  the  Btate  where  he  Li  pulsion  from 

the  Church,  on  any  member  who  Bhould  sell  a  Blave,  and 
conditional  emancipation  on  any  who  Bhould  purchase 
one.  except  at  th<  si  of  the  Blave.     There  was  □  > 


184  HISTORY    OF    THE 

little  significance  in  the  motion  of  Bruce,  made  imme- 
diately after  these  proceedings  on  slavery,  that  an  edition 
of  the  "  spiritual  part "  of  the  Discipline  be  printed  foi 
the  slaves,  the  laws  on  slavery  not  being  hi  that  newly 
made  division  of  the  book.  The  next  day  Dougharty 
moved  that  two  thousand  be  thus  provided  "  for  the  use 
of  the  South ;"  an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  copies  of 
a  mutilated  edition  of  the  Discipline  are  still  occasion- 
ally found  in  old  Methodist  families  in  the  South. 

The  Conference  adjourned  on  the  twenty-third  of 
May,  having  sat  seventeen  days.  It  "closed,"  says 
Lee,  "  in  peace,  and  the  preachers  parted  in  much  love ; 
but  we  had  to  lament  before  the  Lord  that  there  was 
very  little  stir  of  religion  among  us  during  the  sitting. 
One  principal  reason  of  our  barrenness,  I  believe,  was 
owing  to  an  improper  plan  which  was  adopted  by  the 
Conference  in  the  beginning  of  their  business,  which  was 
this :  to  admit  men,  women,  and  children  into  the  gal- 
leries of  the  meeting- house  to  hear  our  debates.  After 
a  few  days  we  were  obliged  to  close  the  galleries,  and 
sit  in  private,  according  to  our  usual  plan.  It  was  to 
the  preachers  a  good  Conference,  but  there  was  very 
little  visible  good  done  among  the  people  in  general." 

Coke  embarked  for  Europe,  and  was  to  see  his  Ameri- 
can brethren  no  more  ;  and  Whatcoat,  the  junior  bishop 
by  election,  but  senior  by  age,  was  to  meet  with  them 
no  more  in  a  General  Conference. 


HETHOD1ST    EPISCOPAL    CliUKCH.         185 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

REVIEW   OF   THE   PERIOD:    1796-1804. 

Numerical  Gains  —  The  Ministry  — Locations  — The  Local  Ministry  — 
Joshua  Maroden's  Views  of  American  Methodism  —  Itinerants  who 
fell  hy  the  Yellow  Fever  —  John  Dickins's  Character  and  Death  — 
Deaths  of  Preachers  —  Geography  of  the  Church  —  Its  rapid  Growth, 
especially  in  the  West  —  Ratio  of  its  Growth  compared  with  that  of 
the  Nation  —  Conclusion. 

These  eight  years  were  the  most  prosperous  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  thus  far,  surpassing  in  numerical  gains 
any  equal  period.  They  end  with  more  than  a  hundred 
and  rit'teen  thousand  (115,411)  members,  and  four  hund- 
red preachers.1  The  denomination  had  gained  nearly 
fifty-nine  thousand  (58,747)  communicants,  and  more 
than  one  hundred  (107)  preachers,  more  than  doubling 
its  membership,  and  increasing  its  preachers  by  more 
than  one  third,  notwithstanding  the  great  number  of 
"locations,v  which,  as  has  been  repeatedly  shown,  were 
not  real  losses  to  the  ministry,  nor  hardly  to  the  itiner- 
ancy. It  gained  more  members  in  these  eight  years 
than  it  reported  at  the  end  of  the  first  twenty-four 
of  its  history.  The  Philadelphia  Conference  took  the 
lead,  numerically.  It  returned  more  than  twenty-eight 
thousand  seven  hundred  (^8,712;)  Baltimore  ranked 
next,  and  Virginia  third. 

The  gain  of  a  hundred  and  seven  preachers  ie  do  indi- 
cation of  the  actual  ministerial  growth  of  the  Church; 

■  Bangs,  (ii,  p.  171,)  following  the  Minutes,  gives  113,134;  but,  as  I 
■  the  Minul  ie  Western  statistics  of  the  prior 

year;  those  fur  VBQi         _  Minutes  of  1806. 

i 


l86  history  of  the 

a  host  of  its  most  commanding  men  retired  to  the  local 
ranks  in  these  years,  but  still  to  labor  indefatigably. 
There  were  no  less  than  two  hundred  and  seventy-eight 
candidates  received  into  full  membership  by  the  Con- 
ferences. There  were  but  twenty-four  deaths,  and  six 
expulsions  or  withdrawals ;  but  there  were  two  hundred 
and  four  locations,  besides  many  who  were  put  back  into 
the  local  ministry  from  a  probationary  relation  to  the 
Conferences.  Able  local  preachers,  many  of  them  vet- 
erans from  the  itinerancy,  were  now  scattered  over  the 
whole  country,  and  were  among  the  chief  founders  of 
the  Church  in  new  regions.  They  were  much  more 
numerous  than  the  traveling  ministry.  No  reports  of 
them  were  yet  made  in  the  statistics  of  the  Church;  but 
Lee,  who  had  traveled  in  all  its  bounds  with  Asbury, 
endeavored  to  ascertain  their  number  in  1799.  His 
estimate  was  doubtless  much  short  of  the  truth,  But  it 
gives  eight  hundred  and  fifty.  There  were  then  but 
two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  traveling  preachers.  About 
sixty  of  these  local  evangelists  were  beyond  the  Alle- 
ghanies.  Virginia  and  Maryland  had  much  more  than 
a  third  of  the  whole  number,  New  England  had  twenty- 
five,  and  about  a  quarter  of  these  were  in  the  remote 
province  of  Maine. 

Near  the  close  of  our  present  period  a  distinguished 
English  Methodist  preacher  (Joshua  Marsden)  visited 
the  United  States,  (1802,)  and  has  recorded  his  impres- 
sions of  American  Methodism.  He  says :  "  Here  I  had 
an  opportunity  of  contemplating  the  vast  extent  of  the 
work  of  God  in  the  western  world.  I  was  greatly  sur- 
prised to  meet  in  the  preachers  assembled  at  New  York 
such  examples  of  simplicity,  labor,  and  self-denial. 
Some  of  them  had  come  five  or  bix  hundred  miles  to 
attend  the  Conference.     They  had  little  appearance  of 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         187 

clerical  costume;  many  of  them  had  not  a  single  article 
ot  black  cloth;  their  good  bishops  set  them  the  example, 
neither  of  whom  were  dressed  in  black;  but  the  want 
of  this  was  abundantly  compensated  by  a  truly  primi- 
tive zeal  in  the  cause  of  their  Divine  Master.  From 
these  blessed  worthies  I  learned  that  saving  of  souls 
is  the  true  work  of  a  missionary,  and  felt  somewhat 
ashamed  that  I  so  little  resembled  men  who  appeared 
as  much  dead  to  the  world  as  though  they  had  been  the 
inhabitants  of  another  planet.  The  bishops,  Asbury 
and  Whateoat,  were  plain,  simple,  venerable  persons, 
both  in  dress  and  manners.  Their  costume  was  that  of 
former  times,  the  color  drab,  the  waistcoat  with  large 
laps,  and  both  coat  and  waistcoat  without  any  collar; 
their  plain  stocks  and  low-crowned,  broad-brimmed  hats 
bespoke  their  deadness  to  the  trifling  ornaments  of  dress. 
In  a  word,  their  appearance  was  simplicity  itself.  They 
spoke  but  little,  and  appeared  utterly  averse  to  the 
frivolous  compliments  of  the  world.  They  were  perfect 
antipodes  to  'the  thing  that  mounts  the  rostrum  with  a 
skip,'  and  had  something  truly  apostolic  in  their  general 
demeanor.  I  felt  impressed  with  awe  in  their  presence, 
and  soon  perceived  that  they  had  established  themselves 
in  the  esteem  and  veneration  of  their  brethren;  not  by 
the  trappings  of  office,  or  the  pomp  and  splendor  of 
episcopal  parade,  but  by  their  vast  labors,  self-denying 
simplicity,  and  disinterested  love.  These  obtained  for 
them  the  homage  of  the  heart ;  they  were  the  first  in 
office,  becau>e  they  were  first  in  zeal.  Most  of  the 
preachers  appeared  to  be  young  men,  yet  ministerial 
labor  had  impressed  its  withering  seal  upon  their  coun- 
tenances. I  cannot  contemplate,  without  astonishment, 
the  _  "k  <;..<!  has  performed  in  the  United  States 

by    means,    humanly    speaking,    ><>    utterly    unlikely 
I)  -13  d 


188  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Methodism  has  spread  throughout  the  whole  extent  of 
this  vast  country.  Along  its  mighty  lakes  and  sylvan 
solitudes,  where  the  population  is  but  thinly  scattered, 
circuits  have  been  formed,  chapels  built,  and  the  remote 
settlements,  out  of  the  reach  of  regular  pastoral  help,  have 
greatly  benefited  by  the  visits  and  labors  of  the  preach 
ers.  It  is  in  America  we  see  Methodism  in  its  grandest 
form.  All  is  here  upon  a  scale  of  magnitude  equal  to 
the  grandeur  of  the  lakes,  rivers,  forests,  and  mountains 
of  the  country.  In  England  Methodism  is  like  a  river 
calmly  gliding  on ;  here  it  is  a  torrent  rushing  along, 
and  sweeping  all  away  in  its  course.  Methodism  in 
England  is  the  Methodism  of  Wesley,  methodical,  in- 
telligent, and  neat ;  in  America  it  resembles  Asbury,  it 
has  more  roughness  and  less  polish.  The  good  they 
have  done  to  the  blacks  is  beyond  calculation,  and  the 
new  settlements  in  different  parts  of  the  interior,  with- 
out such  a  ministry,  might  have  degenerated  into  hea- 
thens. Methodism  has  been  a  peculiar  blessing  to  this 
new  world,  which,  having  no  religious  establishment,  is 
in  many  of  its  remote  parts  more  dependent  on  such  a 
ministry  than  can  well  be  conceived  by  those  who  never 
visited  the  country.  Many  thousands  of  the  settlers 
would  have  been  left  to  precarious  and  contingent  re- 
ligious instruction,  had  not  the  Methodist  preachers, 
with  an  alacrity  and  zeal  worthy  the  apostolic  age, 
spread  themselves  abroad  in  every  direction,  and  become 
every  man's  servant  for  Christ's  sake."  2 

Of  the  twenty-four  itinerants  who  died  in  the  field,  m 
this  period,  we  have  already  noticed  Hezekiah  C.  Woos- 
ter,  the  Canadian  pioneer,  Tobias  Gibson,  the  South- 
western founder  and  martyr,  and  William  Ormond,  the 
Southern  "  abolitionist,"  who  fell  by  the  yellow  f<3\er. 

2  Marsden's  Narrative  of  a  Mission,  etc.,  p.  107.     London,  1&JV 

d 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  L89 

Tliat  pestilence  prevailed  along  the  Atlantic  coast  from 
the  Stmt])  even  as  far  north  as  Portsmouth,  X.  II.,  spread- 
ing terror  everywhere.  It  desolated  Philadelphia  in 
170;,  and  reappeared  in  the  North  in  1798.  Asbury  re- 
turning from  New  England,  wrote,  in  September  of  the 
latter  year:  "The  fever  is  breaking  out  again  in  Ports 
month,  and  it  is  awful  in  Philadelphia.  It  seemeth  as 
if  the  Lord  would  humble  or  destroy  that  city,  by 
stroke  after  stroke,  until  they  acknowledge  God.  Very 
serious  appearances  of  this  lever  are  now  in  New  York." 
Later  he  wrote:  "Most  awful  times  in  Philadelphia 
and  Xew  York,  citizens  flying  before  the  fever  as  if  it 
were  the  sword.  I  now  wait  the  providence  of  God 
to  know  which  way  to  go."  The  General  Conference 
had  hitherto  been  held  in  winter  or  autumn,  but  in 
1800  it  met,  for  the  first  time,  in  May,  through  fear  of 
a  return  of  the  plague,  though  it  had  been  appointed 
for  the  autumn,  a  change  which  it  has  always  since  fol- 
lowed ;  but  the  preachers  braved  it  at  their  ministerial 
posts,  and  several  of  them  heroically  perished.  Among 
its  victims  was  John  Pagan,  an  Irishman,  who,  after 
traveling  in  Maryland,  Nova  Scotia,  and  New  Jersey, 
took  the  disease  in  Philadelphia,  and  died  in  1797  ;  a 
very  "conscientious  man,"  of  "great  solitude  of  mind," 
"remarkably  fond  of  books,"  and  a  successful  preacher. 
James  King  died  of  the  epidemic  at  Charleston,  S.  C, 
the  same  year;  a"friend  of  liberty,"  as  well  as  religion, 
who  had  traveled  "extensively  and  preached  faithfully" 
in  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  and  -'gave  his  life,  his 
Labors,  and  his  fortune"  to  the  Chinch.  William  Early 
perished  by  it,  a  "zealous  and  a  powerful  preacher;" 
"it  was  supposed,"  Bays  Lee,  "that  he  took  the  yellow 
fever  in  Newbern,  X.  ('. ;  but  he  continued  to  travel 
nil  the  fever  eame  on   bim  bo   severely  thai   he   was 


190  HISTORY    OF    THE 

forced  to  lie  down  "by  the  side  of  the  road,  where  one 
of  the  neighbors  found  him,  and  asked  him  to  his  house, 
where  he  went,  took  to  his  bed,  and,  after  a  few  days, 
died ;"  in  the  hour  of  death  "he  gave  tokens  of  victory." 
Benton  Riggin  was  another  victim,  who  fell,  in  1799, 
at  Baltimore,  the  eighth  who  had  thus  suffered  down  to 
this  date,  say  the  Minutes.  "  This  man  of  God,"  they 
add,  "  might  have  probably  saved  his  life  by  flight ;  but 
he  stayed,  to  live  or  die,  in  his  station,  and.  charge  ot 
souls."  In  1800  James  Tollison  was  another  martyr,  at 
Portsmouth,  Va.,  a  "  man  of  excellent  understanding," 
who  had  preached  from  Georgia  to  New  York.  He 
made  his  will,  says  Lee,  and  left  all  he  possessed  to  his 
fellow-itinerants ;  even  his  clothes  were  brought  to  the 
next  Conference  and  given  to  them. 

But  the  most  distinguished  victim  was  John  Dickins, 
who  has  often  appeared  in  these  pages  as  one  of  the 
chieftains  of  early  Methodism,  and  who  died  at  his  post, 
as  Book  Agent  and  preacher,  at  Philadelphia,  in  1798. 
He  was  a  man  of  classical  learning,  a  sound  divine,  a 
rare  counselor,  and  a  powerful  preacher.  "  According 
to  his  time  and  opportunity,"  say  the  Minutes,  "he 
was  one  of  the  greatest  characters  that  ever  graced 
the  pulpit,  or  adorned  the  society  of  Methodists.  Aftei 
standing  the  shock  of  two  seasons,  1793  and  1797, 
of  the  prevailing  fever,  he  fell  in  the  third  and  awful 
visitation  of  1798."  A  short  time  before  his  death  he- 
wrote  to  Asbury :  "  I  sit  down  to  write  as  in  the  jaws 
of  death.  Whether  Providence  may  permit  me  to  see 
your  face  again  in  the  flesh  I  know  not.  Perhaps  1 
might  have  left  the  city,  as  most  of  my  friends  and 
brethren  have  done.  1  commit  myself  and  family  into 
the  hands  of  God  for  life  or  death.' "  Dying,  he  said  to 
his  wife,  "  Glory  be  to  God,  I  can  rejoice  in  his  will, 


METHODIST     I.I'Im'OI'AL    CHURCH.         191 

whether  for  life  or  death  !  I  know  all  is  well.  Glory 
be  to  Jesus  !  I  hang  upon  thee.  Glory  be  to  thee,  O 
my  God!  I  have  made  it  my  constant  business,  in  ray 
feeble  manner,  to  please  thee,  and  now,  O  God,  thou 
dost  comfort  me  !"  Clasping  his  hands,  with  tears 
running  down  his  cheeks,  he  cried,  "  Glory  be  to  God  ! 
Glory,  glory  be  to  God  !  3Iy  soul  now  enjoys  such 
sweet  communion  with  him,  that  I  would  not  give  it 
for  all  the  world.  Glory  be  to  Jesus!  O  glory  be  to 
my  God !  I  have  not  felt  so  much  for  seven  years. 
Love  him,  trust  him,  praise  him." 

Besides  these  victims  of  the  pestilence,  the  obituary 
list  of  the  Minutes  during  these  years  records  Albert 
Van  Xostrand  in  1797,  at  White  Plains,  N".  Y.,  "cir- 
cumspect and  approved ;"  Michael  H.  R.  Wilson,  in 
1798,  at  Strasburgh,  Pa.,  '-more  than  conqueror"  in 
death;  John  X.  Jones,  at  Charleston,  S.  C.,  1798, 
"  with  unshaken  confidence  and  joy  in  God ;"  William 
Wilkerson,  in  Gloucester  County,  Va.,  in  1798,  "owned 
and  honored  as  a  witness  for  Jesus ;"  Thomas  Haymond, 
in  Ohio,  in  1799,  a  man  of  "great  goodness  of  heart, 
often  laboring  beyond  his  strength,"  a  pioneer  in  West- 
ern Pennsylvania  and  Ohio;  liobert  Bonham,  1800,  in 
Baltimore,  a  young  man  of  "gracious  heart,  upright 
walk,  and  lively  ministry;"  Abraham  Andrews,  an 
old  English  Methodist,  of  "great  strictness  of  life;" 
Salathiel  Weeks,  in  Virginia,  who  "labored  faithfully," 
and  "wasted  away  with  consumption;"  in  the  same 
year,  Charles  Burgoon,  who  was  of  "a  dejected  spirit," 
'•worn  out  with  pain,"  but  "died  in  peace;"  Lewi-* 
Hunt,  in  Fleming  County,  Kv.,  in  180!,  the  young  itiner- 
ant whc  followed  Kobler  in  Ohio,  and  returned  thence 
to  hifl  father's  bouse  to  die  of  consumption,  "in  assured 
peace  with  God;"   in  1802,  in  Hampshire  County,  Va., 


192  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

Edmund  Wyman,  who,  though  "  much  debilitated,"  and 
"  apparently  near  his  end,"  a  year  before  his  death,  con- 
tinued to  travel  till  he  could  do  so  no  more,  and  fell 
asleep  in  great  "tranquility;"  in  Gloucester,  N.  J.,  in 
1802,  John  Leach,  "circumspect,"  "pious,"  "useful,"  a 
sufferer  of  "  oppressive  affliction,"  but  who  "  died  in  great 
peace;"  in  Monmouth  County,  N.  J.,  1803,  Anthony 
Turck,  the  Dutch  itinerant  whom  we  have  met  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Mountains,  "a  holy  man,  indefatigable, 
successful,  subject  to  great  afflictions,"  with  "increasing 
sweetness  in  communion  with  God"  toward  his  end, 
And  "  victory  in  death ;"  in  Virginia,  Nathan  Jarrett, 
M  a  man  of  great  zeal,"  "  pleasing  voice,"  and  exceed- 
ingly affable,  who,  after  lying  insensible  some  time, 
"broke  out  in  a  rapture,"  singing,  "Behold,  the  light 
is  come !  The  glorious  conquering  King  is  nigh  to 
take  his  exiles  home,"  and  in  a  few  minutes  fell  asleep 
in  Jesus ;  Rezin  Cash,  "  a  man  of  great  solemnity 
of  mind  and  goodness  of  heart,"  who  "  languished 
away,"  and  "died  in  peace;"  in  1804,  at  Ashgrove, 
N.  Y.,  the  scene  of  Embury,  Bininger,  and  Ashton's 
last  years,  David  Brown,  a  devout  Irishman,  who  fell 
there  laboring  for  the  Church  in  the  wilderness,  dying 
in  "  a  floodtide  of  joy,"  and  uttering,  as  his  last  words, 
"  My  anchor  is  cast  within  the  vail." 

The  General  Conference  of  1804  defined,  and  published 
in  the  Discipline,  the  boundaries  of  the  Annual  Con- 
ferences. They  show  the  enlarged  geography  of  the 
Church. 

1.  The  New  England  Conference  includes  the  Dis- 
trict of  Maine,  and  the  Boston,  New  London  and  Ver- 
mont Districts. 

2.  The  New  York  Conference  comprehends  the  New 
York,  Pittsfield,  Albany,  and  Upper  Canada  Districts. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        193 

3.  The  Philadelphia  Conference  includes  the  remain- 
der of  the  state  of  New  York,  all  New  Jersey,  that  part 
of  Pennsylvania  which  lies  on  the  east  side  of  the  Sus- 
quehanna River,  except  what  belongs  to  the  Susque- 
hanna District,  the  state  of  Delaware,  the  Eastern 
Shore  of  Maryland,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  peninsula. 

4.  The  Baltimore  Conference  comprises  the  remain- 
der of  Pennsylvania,  the  Western  Shore  of  Maryland, 
the  Northern  Neck  of  Virginia,  and  the  Greenbrier 
District. 

5.  The  Virginia  Conference  includes  all  that  part  of 
Virginia  which  lies  on  the  south  side  of  the  Rappahan- 
nock River,  and  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  and  all  that 
part  of  North  Carolina  which  lies  on  the  north  side  of 
Cape  Fear  River,  except  Wilmington;  also  the  circuits 
on  the  branches  of  the  Yadkin. 

6.  The  South  Carolina  Conference  comprehends  the 
remainder  of  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  and 
Georgia. 

7.  The  "Western  Conference  includes  the  states  of 
Tennessee,  Kentucky,  and  Ohio,  and  that  part  of  Vir- 
ginia which  lies  west  of  "  the  great  river  Kanawha, 
with  the  Illinois  and  the  Natchez." 

Methodism  waa  now  intrenched  in  every  state  of  the 
Union,  and  was  penetrating  every  one  of  its  opened 
territories.  The  few  itinerants  who  had  followed  Gib- 
son to  the  Natchez  country  invaded  West  Florida  and 
East  Louisiana.  The  germs  of  Churches  now  obscurely 
planted  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  were  never  to  die, 
but  to  yield,  in  our  day,  the  mighty  harvest  of  116,000 
members  and  000  preachers  in  Ohio;  90,000  members 
and  In jra  in  Indiana;  00,000  members  and  560 

ichers   in    Illinois;    and    to    Bpread    out   sheltering 
boughs  over  all  the  Wesl  to  the  northern  lakes  and  the 


194  HISTORY     OF    THE 

Pacific  coast.  We  shall  hereafter  see  the  yet  feeble 
forces  of  Western  Methodism,  hitherto  so  scattered  that 
we  have  hardly  been  able  to  make  anything  like  a  co- 
herent record  of  them,  consolidated  into  thirty-five  pow- 
erful Conferences,  with  three  thousand  itinerants,  and 
half  a  million  communicants,  aside  from  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  South,  and  all  other  branches  of  the 
denomination.3  Though  it  began  in  the  West  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  after  its  beginning  in  the  East,  and 
was  yet  in  the  former  but  a  dispersed  and  struggling 
band,  it  was  destined  to  embody,  in  its  ultramontane 
Conferences  by  our  day,  fully  one  half  of  its  ministerial 
strength,  and  to  move  forward  in  the  van  of  all  the 
other  Protestant  Christianity  of  the  Valley  of  the 
Mississippi. 

But  in  all  other  sections  of  the  Republic,  not  except- 
ing New  England,  the  inherent  vitality  and  progressive 
energy  of  Methodism  had  now  become  indisputable,  and 
it  was  henceforward  to  advance  with  a  celerity  unknown 
to  any  other  form  of  Christianity  in  the  nation.  In  the 
last  decade  of  the  last  century  (1790-1800)  the  ratio  of 
the  increase  of  the  population  of  the  United  States  was 
35.02  per  cent.,  that  of  Methodism,  meanwhile,  was  but 
12.60  per  cent. ;  but  this  disproportion  between  the 
growth  of  the  nation  and  the  denomination  was  to  cease 
for  our  age,  if  not  forever,  with  the  close  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.4  Excepting  the  periods  of  the  secession 
of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  and  of  the 
southern  Rebellion,  the   ratio   of  the  increase   of  the 

3  Minutes  of  1865,  and  Goss's  Statistical  History  of  Methodism,  cor- 
rected by  later  data. 

4  Except  at  the  time  of  the  secession  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  (which,  however,  did  not  affect  the  general  numerical 
strength  of  American  Methodism,)  and  during  the  late  war.  My  esti- 
mates are  by  decades  from  1790. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  195 

Church  has  far  outsped  that  of  the  nation.  Even  dating 
from  1790,  and  making  no  allowance  for  these  two  for- 
midable drawbacks,  the  average  ratio  of  the  increase  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  has  been,  down  to  our 
day,  (i860,)  56.85  per  cent,  for  each  ten  years,  while 
that  of  the  population  of  the  republic  has  been  35.82 
per  cent.  The  Church  has  led  the  nation  at  the  rate  of 
twenty-three  per  cent,  each  decade.  And  yet  this  state- 
ment, applying  only  to  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
gives  no  adequate  estimate  of  the  incredible  vigor  of 
Methodism,  for  about  half  its  numerical  force  in  the 
United  States  is  outside  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  The  astonishing  o-ains  of  the  latter  have  been 
made  in  spite  of  secessions,  (averaging  about  one  for 
every  fifteen  years,)  by  which  half  the  actual  strength 
of  American  Methodism  stands  organized  beyond  its 
ecclesiastical  lines,  though  identical  with  it  in  doctrine 
and  internal  discipline,  and  nearly  so  in  ecclesiastical 
economy. 

We  stand,  then,  at  present  (1804)  in  a  most  interest- 
ing stage  of  its  progress,  about  midway  of  the  decade 
in  which,  after  faltering  long,  in  the  ratio  of  its  growth, 
behind  that  of  the  country,  it  was  about  to  wheel  from 
its  position  in  the  rear  and  advance  with  its  triumphant 
banner  to  the  front,  not  only  of  all  other  denominations, 
but  of  the  nation  itself,  in  the  ratio  of  its  increase ;  and 
thenceforward,  for  good  or  ill,  lead  the  Christianity  of 
the  North  American  continent,  adding  to  its  ranks  an" 
nually  masses  of  population  which  not  only  astonished 
its  own  bumble  laborers,  but  the  Christian  world,  and 
sometimes,  in  a  Bingle  year,  exceeded  the  entire  mem- 
ber-hip of  denominations  which  had  been  in  the  field 
generations  before  it. 

At  such  a  crisis, the  detail  with  which  I  have  thns  far 


196  HISTORY     OF    THE 

recorded  the  early  history  of  this  curious  and  important 
religious  development,  will  not  perhaps  appear  irrele- 
vant, for  it  is  by  such  facts,  showing  its  genetic  condi- 
tions, but  too  often  ignored  in  history,  that  we  are  to 
learn  its  true  genius  and  probable  destiny,  and  unfold, 
to  its  present  and  future  people,  its  primitive  and  best 
lessons.  The  facts  of  its  further  progress,  though 
scarcely  less  striking,  will  be  more  general,  and  can  be 
more  rapidly  narrated. 


EIODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         19' 


BOOK   VI. 

FROM    THE    GENERAL    CONFERENCE    OF    1804    TO    THE 
GENERAL   CONFERENCE    OF    1820. 


CHAPTEE  I. 

METHODISM   IN  THE   SOUTH. 

Statistical  Strength  of  the  Church  — Methodism  in  Savannah,  Ga. — 
Jes=e  Lee  there  —  Charleston,  S.  C.  —Richmond,  Va.  —  Character  of 
Lewis  Myers  —  William  M.  Kennedy  —  James  Russell  —  He*  learns 
to  read  on  his  Circuit  —  His  Eloquence  —  President  Olin's  Estimate 
of  him  — Lovick  and  Reddick  Pierce  —  Richmond  Nolley's  Conver- 
sion —  His  Early  Ministry  —  A  Camp-meeting  Scene  —  Samuel 
Dunwody. 

The  period  upon  which  we  now  enter  trenches,  in  some 
degree,  upon  our  own  times.  Some  of  the  itinerants 
who,  at  its  beginning,  and  scores  who  at  its  close,  were 
active  in  its  scenes,  still  survive.  We  approach  also 
events  which  assumed  party  aspects,  and  have  left  dis- 
puted questions  and  disputed  reputations ;  the  task  of 
the  writer  becomes,  therefore,  more  delicate,  and  in 
some  of  his  personal  references,  at  least,  he  must  be- 
come more  reticent,  but  with  no  sacrifice  of  essential 
truth. 

During  all  these  years  Methodism  was  rapidly  ma- 
lured  and  consolidated  throughout  the  South,  now  its 
/i)i<i*    field,    possessing    nearly    half   of   its   numerical 
gth.     It  reported  at  their  beginning  thirteen  dis- 
tricts, eighty-seven  circuits,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty 


198  HISTORY    OF    THE 

four  itinerant  preachers,  with  more  than  fifty-five  thou 
sand  members,  including,  however,  the  ultramontane 
portions  of  the  Baltimore  and  Virginia  Conferences, 
which  I  have  thus  far  geographically  assigned  to  the 
West.  At  the  close  of  the  period  it  reported  23  dis- 
tricts, 162  circuits,  and  272  preachers,  with  more  than 
101,500  members.  Methodism  had  taken  ecclesiastical 
possession  of  the  South. 

It  hfid  been  for  some  time  intrenched  in  the  prin- 
cipal southern  cities,  except  Savannah,  and  now,  after 
long  opposition,  was  established  there.  We  have 
seen  Hope  Hull  driven  from  that  city  in  1790.  Jona- 
than Jackson  and  Josiah  Randle  invaded  it  in  1796, 
but  had  to  retreat.  John  Garvin  repeated  the  attempt 
in  1800,  but  failed  of  permanent  success.  In  the  South 
Carolina  Conference  of  1806  Asbury  appealed  to  the 
preachers  in  behalf  of  the  hostile  post,  and  Samuel 
Dunwody,  who  had  just  joined  the  itinerancy,  volun- 
teered to  enter  it.  He  hired  a  small  room,  taught  a 
school  for  his  living,  and  began  to  preach,  almost  exclu- 
sively, however,  to  the  family  where  he  resided,  and  the 
almshouse  and  the  hospital.  The  year  closed  with  but 
twelve  members,  seven  of  whom  were  negroes.1  This 
little  band  seems  to  have  been  organized  by  Jesse  Lee, 
who  made  a  preaching  excursion  southward,  as  far  as 
Florida,  in  1807,2  and  spent  a  short  time  in  the  city. 
On  the  nineteenth  of  April  he  writes:  "At  night,  at 
Mr.  Myers's,  I  preached  on  1  Peter  ii,  5.  I  had  a 
crowded  house,  and  more  attended  than  could  get  in , 
many  were  forced  to  remain  out  of  doors.  I  preached 
to  them  with  some  freedom,  and  they  fed  on  the  word 

»  Bangs,  ii,  194.     Dunwody's  appointment  does  not  appear  in  the 
Minutes  till  1807. 
a  Dr.  Lee's  Life  of  Lee,  p.  426. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  19i> 

trith  much  apparent  pleasure.  All  were  solemn,  and 
some  were  affected.  It  was  a  good  time  to  many  souls. 
Alter  I  dismissed  the  congregation  I  requested  all 
that  had  been  Methodists  in  other  places,  and  wished 
again  to  be  in  society  with  us,  to  remain,  and  we  would 
form  a  class.  I  took  four  of  them  into  a  class.  There 
were  others  present,  but  I  told  them  that  I  did  not 
do-ire  any  person  to  join  at  that  time  but  such  as  had 
been  formerly  in  society  with  us;  and  if  any  others 
wished  to  join,  they  might  have  an  opportunity  after  a 
few  meetings.  This  was  the  first  class  that  was  ever 
formed  in  Savannah.  Who  knows  but  the  Lord  will 
multiply  his  blessings  upon  us,  and  make  us  a  great 
people  in  this  place,  as  well  as  in  other  places  ?  " 

Dunwody's  successors  had  severe  struggles.  The 
local  prejudice  seemed,  for  years,  unconquerable  ;  but 
in  1812,  after  obtaining  pecuniary  aid  from  various  parts 
of  the  country,  a  church  was  erected,  bearing  the  name 
of  Wesley  Chapel,  and  dedicated  by  Asbury.  Thus, 
about  seventy-five  years  after  Wesley's  persecutions  in 
this  city,  his  cause  permanently  erected  its  standard 
there,  inscribed  with  his  own  name,  as  it  had  in  Balti- 
more, Xorfolk,  Richmond,  Charleston,  and  nearly  every 
other  large  community  of  the  South.  In  Charleston 
the  struggling  Church  now  advanced  effectively;  Ham- 
mett's  schismatic  Trinity  Church  still  held  out  for 
a  part  of  the  period,  but  at  last  yielded,  and  was  ab- 
sorbed by  the  parent  denomination.  By  the  death  of 
Wells,  the  chief  lay  pillar  of  Charleston  Methodism  had 
fallen,  but  MTarland,  hi-  friend  and  partner  in  business, 
took  his  place.  The  proslavery  persecutions,  in  the 
times  of  Dougharty,  Bhook  the  society,  and  public  prej- 
udice seemed  Long  unconquerable,  so  that  when  young 
William  Canem  was  Bent  there,  about  the  beginning  ol 


200  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

1811,  it  had  but  145  white  members  on  its  records;  but 
at  the  close  of  the  present  period  it  reported  nearly  350 
whites. 

Methodism  had  struggled  with  hardly  any  success  in 
Richmond,  Va.,  and  could  show  but  sixty  three  members 
at  the  beginning  of  the  period  ;  at  its  close  there  were 
more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty.    In  no  city  in  the  United 
States  had  it,  nor  had  indeed  any  form  of  real  piety,  slower 
advances  than  there.    Richmond  is  first  mentioned  among 
the  appointments  of  the  Minutes,  in  1793,  as  connected 
with  Manchester ;  but  it  immediately  disappears  for  six 
years.     It  is  probable,  however,  that  a  class  was  organ- 
ized in  the  city  as  early  as  1 793,  and  that  the  itinerants  of 
adjacent  circuits  often  preached  for  the  little  band.     An 
English  Methodist  family,  by  the  name  of  Barratt,  and 
also  a  local  preacher  by  name  of  Lacey,  located  there 
before  1793,  and  are   supposed  to  have  been  its  first 
Methodists.      They  procured   the   occasional  ministra- 
tions of  the  itinerants  of  Williamsburgh  Circuit,  and 
meetings  were  held  in  the  court  house ;  but  from  this 
they  were  expelled  by  the  magistrates  as  soon   as  a 
"  revival "  began  to  break  out.     They  were  compelled 
now  to  resort  to  a  "  common,"  west  of  the  capitol ;  but 
Mrs.  Barratt  soon  opened  and  fitted  for  their  accommoda 
tion  a  large  barn  which  stood  on  her  premises.     Asbury, 
M'Kendree,   and   other   great   men   "  preached    in   this 
stable-church."     The  congregation  obtained  again  the 
use  of  the  court-house.     In  1799  Thomas  Lyell,  a  very 
popular  preacher,  was  sent  to  them.     Only  two  houses 
of  worship  could   then   be  found  in  the  city;    one  ol 
these  was  St.  John's  Church,  whose  resident  clergyman 
preached  there  but  three  times  a  year,  in  order  to  save 
the  glebe  lands  from  forfeiture ;  the  other  was  a  small 
Baptist  chapel.     Lyell  immediately  began  the  erection 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  201 

?f  a  Methodist  church.  Another  was  built  in  1812,  and 
now  the  Methodists  had  become  the  strongest  religious 
body  in  the  city.  The  memorable  burning  of  the  theater 
and  loss  of  life,  in  the  previous  year,  had  aroused  some 
religious  thought  in  the  public  mind.  The  first  session 
of  a  Methodist  Conference  took  place  there  at  the  be- 
ginning of  1812,  and  Jesse  Lee  was  appointed  to  the 
BtalioD.  He  labored  with  his  usual  energy,  preaching 
four  times  on  Sunday,  in  the  open  air  as  well  as  in  the 
churches,  and  holding  meetings  every  night. 

Methodism  was  therefore  now  not  only  founded,  but 
fortified,  in  all  the  principal  communities  of  the  South. 
Meanwhile  it  spread  prevailingly  through  the  interior 
towns  and  settlements.  It  had  long  been  tending  to- 
ward the  southwest.  Early  in  the  period  it  penetrated 
into  Alabama,  where  it  was  destined  to  become  the  pre- 
dominant religious  power.  The  noted  Lorenzo  Dow 
had  wandered  into  this  wilderness  in  1803,  and  was 
there  also  in  1804."  The  historian  of  the  state  ac- 
knowledges that  he  preached  the  first  Protestant  ser- 
mon delivered  on  its  soil.*  Louisiana,  ceded  to  the 
United  States  under  Jefferson's  administration,  reached 
as  far  eastward  as  the  Perdido  River.  The  Indian  title 
to  some  of  the  eastern  lands  was  extinguished,  and  we 
early  hear  of  white  settlements  on  Tensas,  Tombigbee, 
Buckatano.  and  Chickasaw.  It  was  to  these  frontier 
and  Bemibarbarous  pioneers  that  Dow  heralded  Meth- 
odism. In  1807  Asbury  called,  in  the  South  Carolina 
Conference,  at  Charleston,  for  missionaries  to  this  then 
far  western  field,  and  among  the  appointments  to  the 
nee  District,  traveled  by  Josiah  Randle,  is  Tombig- 
bee Circuit,  with  Matthew  P.  Sturdevant  as  preacher. 
Handle  District  must  have  been  immense  and  peril 

» Dow's  Journals.  History  of  Alabama. 


202  HISTORY    OF    THE 

for  between  the  Oconee,  from  which  it  took  its  name, 
and  the  Tornbigbee  Circuit,  lay  an  Indian  country  of 
four  hundred  miles  extent.5  The  next  year  Tombigbee 
still  appears  in  the  Minutes,  with  Michael  Burdge  and 
Sturdevant  as  preachers,  but  the  latter  bears  the  title 
of  "missionary,"  implying,  probably,  that  he  was  to 
push  to  "  regions  beyond."  At  the  end  of  this  second 
year  they  report  eighty-six  Church-members,  the  germ 
of  all  the  subsequent  growth  of  Alabama  Methodism. 
In  1809  John  W.  Kennon  and  Burdge  were  the  whole 
itinerant  force  of  the  field.  Their  labor  was  hard  and 
their  success  slow ;  but  they  returned  to  the  Conference 
in  1811,  reporting  one  hundred  and  sixteen  members. 

Meanwhile  itinerants  from  Tennessee  were  entering 
the  northeastern  portions  of  the  country.  About  the 
year  1807  the  Indian  title  to  the  region  north  of  the 
Tennessee  River,  bounded  on  the  east  by  Flint  River, 
on  the  west  by  Indian  Creek,  and  reaching  to  the  Ten- 
nessee boundary  line,  was  extinguished,  and  in  1808 
Madison  County  was  organized.  It  was  reached  by  the 
Elk  (Tenn.)  Circuit,  and  the  next  year  we  read  the  title 
of  "  Flint  Circuit,"  with  no  less  than  one  hundred  and 
seventy  Methodists,  to  whom  the  Conference,  assembled 
in  Cincinnati,  sent  Jedediah  M'Minn  as  preacher.  Thus 
the  itinerants  of  the  Southeast  and  the  far  West  met  on 
the  new  field  of  Alabama.  In  1811  the  western  preach- 
ers at  the  North,  and  those  of  South  Carolina  at  the 
South,  returned  an  aggregate  of  about  four  hundred 
communicants  in  the  country.  The  labors  and  sufferings 
of  the  earliest  evangelist  were  as  severe  as  any  endured 
in  the  history  of  the  Church,  but  they  are  unrecorded, 
and  known  now  only  by  fragmentary  traditions.     John 

6F.  G.  Furguson,  m  "The  Home  Circle,"  April,  1860,  p.  ?30. 
Nashville,  Tcnn. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         203 

S.  Ford,  who  was  sent  with  Kennon  to  Tombigbee 
Circuit  in  IS  10,  relates  that  from  the  time  they  set  out 
from  the  settlements  in  Georgia  till  they  reached  Fort 
Claiborne,  on  the  Alabama  River,  they  had  to  sleep 
uuder  the  trees  thirteen  nights.  They  carried  their 
own  provisions,  except  what  they  could  occasionally 
obtain  from  the  Indians,  till  they  arrived  among  the 
whites  on  Bassett's  Creek,  now  in  Clark  County.  Here 
their  circuit  began,  and  crossing  the  Tombigbee  at  old 
Fort  St.  Stevens,  continued  thence  up  the  Buckatano 
over  to  Chickasakay,  and  back  through  the  Tensas  set- 
tlements to  Bassett's  Creek.  In  the  South  Carolina 
Conference  of  1810  Asbury  called  for  volunteers  for 
regions  far  beyond  what  was  then  called  "the  wilder- 
ness.v  The  latter,  for  that  day,  was  the  country  from 
the  Ocmulgee  River  to  near  the  Alabama.  Beyond  this 
lay  still  another  "wilderness"  of  the  Chickasaw  and 
Choctaw  Indians,  and  still  beyond  the  latter  lay  the 
field  to  which  the  itinerants  now  began  to  move. 

In  1811  the  Western  Conference,  at  Cincinnati,  sent 
Thomas  Stilwell  and  David  Goodner  to  Richland  and 
Flint,  and  at  the  close  of  the  ecclesiastical  year  three 
hundred  and  forty  eight  members  are  reported  from 
Flint  Circuit.  The  South  Carolina  Conference  of  1811 
sea  to  report  Tombigbee  Circuit;  but  it  reappears, 
in  the  Mississippi  District,  with  one  hundred  and  forty 
members,  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Western  Confer- 
ence. Alabama  thus  passes  definitively  into  the  eccle- 
siastical geography  of  the  West,  but  with  it  went  a  com- 
pany of  strong  South  Carolina  preachers,  at  whose  head, 
as  presiding  elder,  was  Dunwody.  His  Mississippi  Dis- 
trict was  to  become,  in  the  Minutes  of  1817,  the  Mis- 
ppi  Conference.  Gibson,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
reached  the  -till  remoter  Southwest  by  the  Ohio  and 
D— 14  « 


204  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Mississippi  Rivers,  and  in  1812  a  band  of  four  young 
evangelists  departed  from  South  Carolina,  on  horseback, 
for  the  distant  fields  of  Mississippi  and  Louisiana.  They 
were  Richmond  Nolley,  Lewis  Hobbs,  Drury  Powell,  and 
Thomas  Griffin.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  notice  here- 
after their  adventures  in  the  far  southwest. 

Of  the  host  of  able  men  whom  we  have  heretofore 
seen  in  the  southern  itinerancy,  most  were  yet  abroad,  and 
still  in  their  prime  vigor ;  others,  who  have  not  yet  come 
under  our  notice,  were  now  mighty  in  labors,  and  still 
others,  of  later  historical  prominence,  were  about  to 
appear. 

Lewis  Myers  was  rising  into  notice  by  his  characU 
if  not  his  talents ;  a  small  but  sturdy  Dutchman,  of  her- 
culean energy,  of  habitual  humor,  mixed  with  Spartan 
severity ;  a  man  of  few  words,  but  those  always  directly 
to  the  point;  a  considerable  reader,  a  pupil  of  Hope 
Hull's  academy,  and  a  close  student  of  the  Bible ;  eccen- 
tric and  rough  and  formidable,  yet  of  such  real  tender- 
ness of  heart  that  he  seldom  preached  without  tears. 
Through  a  ministry  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  had  a 
hand  in  almost  all  the  hardest  work  of  the  Church  in 
the  low  country  of  Georgia  and  South  Carolina.  No 
man  was  more  resolute  to  confront  labor  or  suffering  in 
the  common  cause ;  he  therefore  became  a  leader  in  his 
Conference,  and,  on  the  floor  of  the  General  Conference, 
he  was  respected  for  his  strong  practical  sense,  and 
admired  for  his  loyal  devotion  to  the  Church.  "He 
belonged,"  says  a  bishop  of  Southern  Methodism,  "to 
a  class  of  men  of  heroic  mould,  who  could  take  the 
saddle,  face  a  day's  hard  rain,  swim  swollen  creeks,  live 
in  the  cabins  of  the  poor,  eat  bear-meat,  if  necessary, 
and  preach  without  manuscript  every  day  of  the  week ; 
who  went  girded  into  the  great  battle-field  where  ignor- 

d 


ICETHODIST    K  PISCO  PAL    CHURCH.         205 

ance,  vice,  and  semi-barbarism  were  to  be  confronted, 
and  Fonghl  a  good,  honest  fight,  very  different  from  the 
sham-battles  of  holiday  heroes.  He  was  a  man  of  weight 
in  the  Conference,  will  versed  in  affairs,  of  sound  judg- 
ment, and  looked  up  to  with  universal  respect."6  He 
died  in  1851,  a  patriarch  of  the  South,  having  been  con- 
nected with  the  ministry  a  full  half  century,  though 
about  half  the  time  in  a  superannuated  relation,  a  suf- 
ferer from  spasmodic  asthma,  brought  on  by  his  itinerant 
exposures  and  labors. 

William  M.  Kennedy  began  his  career  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  period.  Born  in  1783,  in  that  part  of 
South  Carolina  which  was  ceded  to  Tennessee  in  1790, 
he  had  the  early  hardy  training  of  the  western  mount- 
ains. He  lived  some  years  in  South  Carolina,  and  at 
last  in  Georgia,  where,  in  1803,  he  was  brought  into  the 
Church  under  the  ministry  of  Hope  Hull.  Joining  the 
South  Carolina  Conference  of  1805,  he  filled  its  most 
important  appointments  for  more  than  thirty  years,  half 
of  the  time  as  presiding  elder.  In  1839  he  was  struck 
with  apoplexy  ;  his  Conference  placed  him  on  its  super- 
annuated list,  but  he  continued  to  labor.  "  I  wish,*'  he 
exclaimed,  "the  messenger  of  death  to  find  me  at  my 
Master's  work."  Traveling  in  the  service  of  th<  Church, 
he  was  suddenly  struck  down  by  another  attack  of  his 
malady  at  the  toot  of  a  large  oak  in  Xew  burgh  District, 
S.  C,  and  died  in  184  i,  lamented  as  one  of  the  noblest 
men  of  Southern  Methodism.  He  w^as  nearly  six  feet 
i.  robust,  with  a  large  bead,  an  intellectual  front, 
an  expn  lark  complexion,   features   radiant 

with  benevolence  and  intelligence,  and  a  voice  of  sin- 
gular melody,  which  procured  for  him  the  title  of  ''the 
sweet   ring*  r  of  the  South  Carolina  Conference."     He 

•  Bfehnp  Wightman1  1116,1858. 


206  HISTORY    OF    THE 

was  an  instructive  and,  sometimes,  a  powerful  preacher, 
especially  at  camp-meetings,  where  the  charm  of  his 
voice  and  the  ardor  of  his  temperament  gave  him 
an  extraordinary  control  of  the  largest  congrega 
tions.  He  was  singularly  gifted  and  effective  in 
prayer.  "  Prayer  was  his  vital  breath,"  says  one  of  his 
intimate  friends.7  His  deep  piety  impressed  all  wrho 
knew  him.  He  had  also  "  a  rich  fund  of  choice  humor." 
He  was  greatly  successful  as  a  presiding  elder,  by  the 
prudence  of  his  counsels,  and  the  quickening  influence 
of  his  preaching  and  example  over  his  vast  districts. 
In  fine,  William  M.  Kennedy  was  one  of  the  most  effect- 
ive founders  of  Methodism  in  the  further  south  at  this 
^arly  and  critical  period. 

One  of  the  most  memorable  evangelists  of  the  south- 
ern itinerancy,  a  man  of  real  and  rare  genius,  appeared 
in  the  same  year  with  Kennedy.  James  Russell  was 
born  in  Mecklenburgh  County,  N.  C,  about  1786. 
Early  left  an  orphan,  poor  and  untrained,  he  had  to 
learn  to  read  after  he  joined  the  South  Carolina  Confer- 
ence in  1805.  He  had  been  refused  license  to  exhort 
because  of  his  ignorance,  but  his  surpassing  natural 
powers  at  last  bore  him  above  all  opposition.  He  car- 
ried his  spelling-book  with  him  along  his  circuit,  seeking 
assistance  in  its  lessons  even  from  the  children  of  the 
families  where  he  lodged.  If  the  state  of  society  in  the 
far  south  at  this  early  time  would  allow  such  a  fact  to 
detract  from  the  ministerial  character  of  ordinary  men, 
it  could  not  with  him,  for  his  extraordinary  power  in 
the  pulpit  armed  him  with  a  supreme  authority.  He 
was  capable  of  the  highest  natural  oratory,  striking 
with  awe  or  melting  with  pathos  his  crowded  auditories. 
His  self  culture  advanced  rapidly.  He  became  a  good 
7  Prof.  Martin,  of  Columbia,  S.  C.     Sprague,  p.  419. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         2<»7 

English  scholar,  and  a  man  of  refined  taste,  commanding 
the  admiration  of  the  most  intelligent  as  well  as  the 
most  illiterate  among  his  hearers,  and  "standing,"  Bays 
a  bishop  of  his  Chnrch,  "  prominent  among  such  men  as 
Hope  Hull,  George  Dougharty,  John  Collinsworth,  and 
Lewis  Myers.  He  was  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  South- 
ern Methodist  Church,  and  famous  in  three  states  as 
among  the  most  eloquent  and  powerful  preachers  of  his 
time.  Of  medium  height,  thin,  his  face  seamed  with 
wrinkles,  his  lips  compressed  and  colorless,  and  his  brow 
overhung  apparently  with  care,  (the  latter  years  of  his 
life  having  been  unfortunate  through  pecuniary  embar- 
rassment,) when  he  rose  in  the  pulpit  the  enthusiasm  of 
youth  seemed  to  awake,  and  the  flash  of  his  eye  and  the 
ring  of  his  percussive  voice,  and  the  animation  and  ease 
of  his  manner,  all  told  yen  that  no  ordinary  man  was 
before  you.  In  addition  to  a  deep  personal  piety,  he 
possessed  the  genius  of  the  pulpit  orator.  He  could 
move  a  multitude  of  live  thousand  hearers  at  a  camp- 
meeting  with  the  ease  of  one  born  to  command,  and 
with  the  momentum  of  a  landslide.'' 8 

In  person  he  was  interesting ;  his  form  was  perfectly 
symmetrical,  his  head  well  developed,  his  eyes  blue  but 
keen,  hair  black,  nose  Roman,  mouth  finely  chiseled, 
voice  wonderfully  musical.  Hard  necessity  compelled 
him  to  locate  in  1815  ;  he  entered  into  business,  and 
was  overwhelmed  by  misfortunes,  under  which  he 
Buffered  till  his  death  in  1825.  His  Christian  char- 
acter remained  unimpeached  through  all  his  troubles, 
and  death  was  a  liberation  t<>  him.  "  Before  next 
Sabbath,*1  he  exclaimed,  •■  I  shall  be  in  paradise;"  and 
his  hope  was  nol  disappointed.  President  Olin,  who 
heard  him  with  delight,  Bays:  "He  was  the  prey  of 
8  Bishop  Wightmai]  ill. 


208  H1STOKV     UF    THE 

fatal  disease;  and  a  weight  of  misfortune,  such  as  rarely 
falls  to  the  lot  of  mortals,  had  bowed  down  his  spirit. 
Whenever  I  expressed  what  I  always  felt — the  highest 
admiration  of  his  original  genius  and  irresistibly  power- 
ful preaching,  I  could  perceive  sadness  gathering  upon 
the  brow  of  the  old  Methodists  as  they  exclaimed,  'Ah, 
poor  Brother  Russell !  he  preaches  well,  very  well,  and 
it  is  long  since  I  heard  such  a  sermon  before.  But  he 
is  no  longer  what  he  used  to  be.  You  should  have 
heard  him  fifteen  years  ago.'  It  is  certain  that  the 
preaching  of  Russell,  fallen  as  he  was  from  the  strength 
of  his  manhood,  made  an  impression  upon  me  such  as 
has  seldom  been  produced  by  another.  Perhaps  he  had 
.lost  something  from  the  vigor  of  his  action,  and  the 
pathos  of  his  exhortation.  The  vividness  and  the  lux- 
uriance of  his  imagination  might  have  been  withered 
in  the  furnace  of  suffering ;  but  the  strong  distinguish- 
ing features  of  his  original  mind,  his  shrewdness  of 
perception,  his  urgency  of  argument,  his  inimitable 
aptness  of  illustration,  his  powers  of  rapid  and  novel 
combination,  were  unimpaired.  He  abounded  in  meta- 
phors, and  no  man  made  a  better  use  of  them.  Nothing- 
could  exceed  the  efficiency  or  the  simplicity  of  his  rhet- 
orical machinery.  The  aptness  and  force  of  his  meta- 
phors always  atoned  for  their  occasional  meanness. 
Their  effect  upon  the  congregation  was  often  like  that 
of  successive  shocks  of  electricity.  If  he  was  power- 
ful as  a  preacher  he  was  mighty  as  an  intercessor, 
Indeed  it  was  in  the  closet  that  the  holy  flame  of  his 
devotion  was  kindled.  The  trophies  of  pardoning  love 
were  multiplied  around  him.  God  gave  to  his  prayers 
and  his  preaching  a  degree  of  success  seldom  witnessed 
since  the  time  of  the  apostles.  Several  thousand  souls 
were  given  to  him,  within  the  South  Carolina  Confer- 


M  KTIIODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH-  209 

ence,  as  the  seals  of  his  ministry,  and  the  crown  of  hib 

eternal  rejoicing." 

Lovick  Pierce  and  his  brother,  Red  dick  Pierce,  en- 
tered the  itinerancy  in  the  same  year  with  Russell  and 
Kennedy.  The  former  still  lives  a  representative  of 
Southern  Methodism  after  more  than  sixty  years  of 
labors  and  sufferings  for  it ;  a  man  of  the  soundest 
faculties,  of  unflagging  energy,  wise  in  counsel,  pow- 
erful in  the  pulpit,  and  of  hardly  paralleled  public 
services,  which,  however,  have  yet  had  no  such  record 
as  would  admit  of  their  just  historic  appreciation.  In 
1799  Methodist  preachers  on  the  old  Edisto  Circuit  ex- 
tended their  travels  to  the  obscure  locality  (on  Tinker's 
Creek)  in  South  Carolina,  where  the  two  brothers  were 
growing  up  with  hardly  any  opportunities  of  religious 
improvement.  Their  father  "  despised  the  Methodists 
with  bitterness,"9  but  the  itinerants  were  welcomed  by 
some  of  his  neighbors.  The  two  youths  obtained  his 
permission  to  attend  one  of  their  meetings,  at  which 
James  Jenkins  preached.  M  This,"  Lovick  Pierce  writes, 
M  was  the  first  time  we  ever  heard  the  gospel  preached 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  sent  down  from  heaven,  and  that 
day  we  both  resolved  to  lead  a  new  life ;  then  and  there 
we  commenced  our  life  of  prayer."  In  1801  they  joined 
the  Church,  and  within  three  weeks  all  the  family,  who 
were  old  enough,  were  enrolled  in  it.  The  next  year  a 
Methodist  chapel  was  erected  near  their  house ;  both 
brothers  began  to  exhort,  and  in  December  of  1804 
both  were  received  into  the  Conference  at  Charleston. 
Reddick  Pierce  was  one  of  the  purest  of  men,  and  his 
word  was  in  prevailing  power.  ':  In  those  days," 
writes    his    brother,    "  in    all    that    country    around    us 

An  obituary  of  bis  brotber,  by  Dr.  L.  Pierce,  Cburle=tou  Cbr.  AcL, 
hug.  18,  1SG0. 


210  HISTORY    0*     THE 

id  which  my  brother  had  done  all  his  frolicking,  I 
never  knew  him  to  make  an  ineffectual  effort.  I  my- 
self saw  on  one  occasion,  under  one  of  his  exhorta- 
tions, eleven  sinners  fall  from  their  seat  —  from  one 
seat — to  the  ground,  crying  for  mercy.  And  this  was 
but  a  remarkable  instance  of  a  common  occurrence, 
especially  under  his  overwhelming  appeals."  Reddick 
Pierce  died  in  1860,  after  faithful  services,  which  con- 
tributed greatly  to  the  outspread  of  Methodism  in 
South  Carolina. 

Lovick  Pierce  as  pastor,  presiding  elder,  a  leader 
in  his  Annual  Conference,  a  representative  in  the 
General  Conference,  has  hardly  been  surpassed  in 
the  South.  He  has  led  many  a  young  hero  into  the 
ministerial  ranks,  and  his  early  labors  were  honored 
by  the  conversion  of  one  of  the  noblest  martyrs  of  the 
itinerancy.  Richmond  Nolley  was,  by  birth,  a  Virgin- 
ian, but  his  parents  removed  with  him  early  to  Georgia, 
where  he  was  soon  left  a  poor  and  orphan  boy. 
Captain  Lucas,  a  Methodist  of  Sparta,  Ga.,  gave  him  a 
home  and  employment.  A  camp-meeting,  still  famous  in 
Georgia  Methodist  traditions,  was  held,  near  Sparta,  in 
1 806,  and  attended  by  an  immense  crowd.  It  was  impos- 
sible for  all  the  people  to  hear  the  preacher,  and  Lovick 
Pierce  was  deputed  to  hold  a  separate  meeting  on  adja- 
cent ground.  He  stood  upon  a  table  and  proclaimed 
the  word  with  such  power  that  a  hearer,  the  daughter 
of  Captain  Lucas,  fell,  smitten  by  it,  in  the  outskirts  of 
the  throng.  The  whole  multitude  was  soon  in  commo- 
tion. A  simultaneous  movement  was  made  toward  the 
preacher.  "  The  people  fell  upon  their  knees,  and  groans 
and  prayers  and  praise  were  mingled.  This  work  con- 
tinued during  the  remainder  of  the  day  and  the  night. 
Over  one  hundred  souls  professed  conversion   around 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         211 

thai  table."  10  Nolley,  and  a  fellow  clerk  in  the  store  of 
Lucas,  were  among  these  converts. 

He  continued  under  the  parental  care  of  his  friend 
Lucas  a  year  longer,  preparing  himself  for  the  ministry 
by  exhorting  in  the  neighborhood,  and  in  1807  was 
received  by  the  Conference,  and  sent  to  Edisto  Circuit, 
where  he  did  good  service  among  the  slaves.  In  1809  he 
was  appointed  to  Wilmington,  N".  C,  where  he  rejoiced 
in  a  general  revival.  The  next  year  he  was  in  Charleston, 
S.  C,  where  he  labored  sturdily  against  no  little  perse- 
cution. Fire-crackers  were  often  thrown  upon  him  in 
the  pulpit,  and  while  he  was  on  his  knees  praying;  but 
he  would  shut  his  eyes,  that  he  might  not  be  distracted 
by  menaces,  and  preach  and  pray  on  with  overwhelming 
power,  a  habit  which,  it  is  said,  lasted  through  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  His  voice  was  as  a  trumpet,  and 
no  man  of  the  South  proclaimed  the  Gospel  with  greater 
energy  than  he.  It  was  already  manifest  that  his  char- 
acter was,  in  the  highest  sense,  heroic,  and  that  the 
bravest  work  of  the  itinerancy  befitted  him.  Accord- 
ingly in  1812  we  find  him  wending  his  way,  with  three 
other  preachers,  toward  the  Mississippi.  Remarkable 
scenes  and  a  martyr's  death  awaited  him  there.  But 
we  must  part  with  him  at  present,  to  meet  him  soon 
again  in  his  new  field. 

Samuel  Dunwody  also  began  his  itinerant  life  in 
South  Carolina  early  in  this  period,  (in  180G.)  though 
he  was  a  native  of  Pennsylvania,  born  in  Chester  County 
in  17S0.  We  have  already  seen  him  struggling  to 
found  the  first  Methodist  Church  in  Savannah,  Ga., 
in  1807.  For  forty  years  he  traveled  and  preached 
like  an  apostle  through  much  of  Georgia  and  the  Caro 

10  Bi>h<>p  aFTyeire  in  Bio^.  Sketches  <-i  Itinerant  Ministers,  p.  2ftl. 

Nashville,  l 

■t 


212  II  t STORY    OF    THE 

linas,  greatly  extending  and  fortifying  the  denomi- 
nation. In  1846  he  was  compelled  to  retire  to  the 
superannuated  ranks  ;  and  "  fell  asleep,"  in  a  most  ti  an- 
quil  death,  in  1854,  a  veteran  of  nearly  seventy-four 
years.  He  was  of  Irish  blood  and  energy  ;  rough  in 
features,  in  voice,  in  manners  ;  resolute  to  the  uttermost, 
having  a  "  determined  spirit,  which  would  only  require 
the  influence  of  circumstances  to  render  its  actings  truly 
heroic."  "  Like  many,  if  not  most  of  his  itinerant  asso- 
ciates, he  was  given  to  humor,  "  having  a  vein  of  keen 
irony  ;"  but  such  was  his  piety  that  "  he  appeared  dead 
to  the  world  in  a  degree  rarely  witnessed,  and  alive  to 
everything  that  involved  the  salvation  of  men."  "Pray- 
ing seemed  scarcely  less  natural  to  his  spiritual  life  than 
breath  to  his  physical  life,"  says  an  intelligent  member 
of  another  denomination,  under  the  roof  of  whose  parson- 
age he  often  found  shelter. 12  All  about  him, "  dress,  horse, 
saddle-bags,"  were  marked  by  poverty,  by  disregard  of 
fashion,  or  even  comfort ;  he  seemed  totally  absorbed  in 
his  spiritual  life  and  work ;  and  "  his  external  life,"  it  is 
said, "  so  manifestly  drew  its  powers  from  the  spirit  within, 
that  there  was  dignity,  it  would  hardly  be  too  much  to 
say  sublimity,  in  his  roughness."  It  is  added,  by  this 
personal  witness,  "  that  simplicity  and  plainness  in  him 
were  widely  disconnected  from  rudeness  and  vulgarity ; 
they  were  rather  the  honorable  hardships  of  the  sol- 
dier's warfare."  He  attained  commanding  influence  in 
his  Conference  as  one  of  its  principal,  though  one  of  its 
least  polished  representatives,  and  was  charged  by 
Asbury,  in  1811,  as  we  have  noticed,  with  the  leader- 
ship of  the  whole  southwestern  field  of  Methodism,  as 
presiding  elder  of  the  Mississippi  District. 
»  Bishop  Morris ;  Sprague,  p.  436.  12  In  Sprague,  p.  437. 

d 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         213 


CnAPTEE  II. 

METHODISM   IN  THE   SOUTH,  1804-1820:  CONTINUED. 

vob  Guest  —  Alfred  Griflith —  Wilson  Lee  and  Black  Charles  —  John 
Early  —  His  long  Services  and  Character  —  Major  Capers  —  Conver- 
sion of  William  Capers  —  Begins  to  Preach  — Interview  with  Asbury 

—  A  Negro  Founds  Methodism  in  Fayetteville  —  His  remarkable 
Story  —  Capers  at  Charleston  —  Colored  Preachers  —  Change  of  Anti- 
slavery  Policy — Capers's  Success  and  Character  —  Beverly  Waugh 

—  John  Davis  —  Alfred  Grhhth  —Robert  R.  Roberts. 

The  name  of  Job  Guest  has  incidentally  but  repeat 
edly  occurred  in  our  pages.  His  friend,  Alfred  Griffith, 
who  entered  the  itinerancy  with  him  in  1806,  Fays  that 
to  his  toils  and  sufferings  through  a  long-continued 
and  faithful  service,  he  might  justly  have  adopted  the 
language  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles:  'In  labors 
abundant,  in  fastings  oft,  in  persecutions,  in  afflictions,' 
etc.  From  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie  on  the  north,  with 
all  the  intermediate  territory  on  the  south,  to  the  waters 
of  Chesapeake  Bay,  together  with  all  Western  Mary- 
land, Western  Pennsylvania,  and  Northern  and  South- 
western Virginia,  was  formed  the  field  over  which, 
from  time  to  time,  his  labors  were  distributed  by  the 
proper  authorities.  And  nobly  did  he  fulfill  his  mission, 
1  to  testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God.'  And  God 
gave  him  great  acceptability  among  the  people,  and 
orach  Buccess  in  winning  soul-  to  Christ.  II<-  was  a 
man  of  more  than  ordinary  talents,  and  was  instrument- 
al in  adding  many  hundreds,  not  to  say  thousands,  t" 
the  fold  of  the  Redeemer  daring  a  ministry  of  nearly 
tifiy    years    <>f   effective    service,    in    which    he    filled 


214  HISTORY    OF    THE 

nearly  all  the  important  appointments  in  the  Confer 
ence."  J  He  died  in  1857,  aged  seventy-two  years,  a 
man  of  the  purest,  the  most  faultless  character,  and  of 
such  extended  and  long  continued  labors  as  deseive  a 
more  thorough  commemoration  than  the  seamy  records 
of  the  Church  will  allow. 

Alfred  Griffith,  himself,  beginning  his  itinerant  career 
at  the  same  time,  claims  our  attention  here,  though,  as  he 
still  lives,  it  will  devolve  on  the  future  historian  of  the 
Church  to  give  a  fuller  record  of  a  life  so  long  and  so 
replete  with  usefulness.  He  was  born  in  1783,  in  Mont- 
gomery County,  Md.,  and  brought  into  the  Church  in 
1801,  in  a  revival  which  began  on  Montgomery 
Circuit  under  the  exertions  of  Wilson  Lee,  who  had 
recently  returned,  broken  in  health  from  his  great 
western  labors,  but  was  preaching  with  his  usual  zeal 
as  a  supernumerary  of  the  circuit.  At  one  of  Lee's  ap- 
pointments (in  a  private  house)  lived  a  remarkably  de- 
voted colored  Methodist  by  the  name  of  Charles.  The 
preacher  having  determined  to  open  the  campaign  at 
this  place,  covenanted  with  the  faithful  African,  that 
at  the  next  meeting,  while  he  should  be  preaching  in 
the  principal  room,  Charles  should  be  on  his  knees,  in 
a  shed-room,  opening  into  that  in  which  the  service  was 
proceeding,  engaged  in  supplication  for  the  success  of 
the  word.  "When  the  time  came,  and  the  itinerant,  of 
whom  men  stood  in  awe  while  they  admired  him,  arose 
in  the  crowded  parlor,  true  to  his  engagement,  Charles 
was  on  his  knees  in  the  shed  room.  There  was  present 
on  that  day  in  that  place  a  power  more  than  human. 
The  people  fell  on  every  sicle.  They  prayed,  they  wept 
sore.  Into  the  midst  of  this  scene  now  came  the  pious 
negro.  He  had  heard  the  Lord's  answer,  and,  not  ven- 
» Minutes,  1858 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH  215 

turing  to  rise,  he  entered  the  room  walking  on  his  knees, 
while  the  tears  streamed  down  his  black  face,  now  made, 
if  not  white,  at  least  intensely  bright  by  the  grateful 
j<>y  which  overspread  it.  Many  souls  were  converted 
at  that  single  meeting,  which  was  the  more  glorious 
because  it  was  only  one  of  a  glorious  series,  only  the 
beginning  of  a  widely  extended,  long-continued  revival 
of  religion,  reaching  to  Baltimore  city  and  county,  to 
Frederick  County,  to  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland, 
to  Pennsylvania,  and  to  Virginia,  and  lasting  till 
1808."1 

In  1806  young  Griffith  was  received  into  the  Balti 
more  Conference,  and  sent  to  the  Wyoming  country, 
where  we  have  already  witnessed  his  itinerant  hard- 
ships. In  his  numerous  subsequent  appointments  he 
has  been  an  able  contributor  to  the  outspread  of  the 
Church  in  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  a 
leader  in  the  Baltimore  Conference,  and  a  venerated 
counselor  in  the  General  Conference.  He  is  small  in 
Mature,  like  Paul  of  unpretentious  personal  presence, 
of  simple  manners,  of  few  words,  but  strikingly  per- 
tinent in  debate,  profound  and  statesmanlike  in  counsel, 
and  in  familiar  conversation  remarkably  entertaining, 
anecdotal,  and  humorous.  He  survives,  burdened  with 
the  infirmities  of  age,  but  cheered  by  the  retrospect  of 
the  success  of  his  cause,  and  the  prospect  of  reunion 
with  the  good  and  great  men  with  whom  he  has  labored 
and  Buffered  for  it. 

A  young  man.  by  the  name  of  John  Early,  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  Virginia  Conference  in  1807.  Bis  family 
belonged  to  the  most  influential  class  of  society  in  Bed- 
ford  County,  Va,  where  he  was  born  in  1786,  became  a 
Methodist  in  L804, and  was  Licensed  to  preach  two  years 
"Rer.  Dr.  Nmlal,  iu  Ladies'  Repository,  Jan.  I860. 


216  HISTORY     OF    THE 

later,  in  his  twenty-first  year.  He  had  begun  his  public 
labors  among  Mr.  Jefferson's  slaves  at  Poplar  Forest,  in 
Bedford  County,  and,  notwithstanding  his  adherence  to 
the  policy  of  the  Church,  South,  respecting  the  slavery 
controversy,  he  has  been  noted,  from  the  beginning,  for 
his  interest  in  the  religious  welfare  of  the  colored  race. 
His  strong  characteristics  quickly  marked  him  as  a 
superior  man.  Possessing  an  iron  constitution,  a  prac 
tical  but  ardent  mind,  a  notably  resolute  will,  and 
habits  rigorously  systematic  and  laborious,  he  became 
a  favorite  coadjutor,  a  confidential  counselor  of  As- 
bury,  M'Kendree,  Bruce,  Jesse  Lee,  and  their  associate 
leaders  of  the  denomination.  He  was  a  renowned,  if  not 
indeed,  a  dreaded,  disciplinarian.  His  preaching  was 
simple,  direct,  and  powerful,  and  few,  if  any,  of  his  early 
fellow-itinerants  gathered  more  recruits  into  the  Church 
in  Virginia.  In  1811  he  received  about  five  hundred 
probationers  on  his  circuit,  Grenville,  Va.  When  only 
about  twenty-seven  years  old,  Asbury,  against  his  re- 
monstrance, made  him  presiding  elder  on  the  Meherren 
District,  Va.,  an  office  in  which  his  extraordinary  busi- 
ness talents,  as  well  as  his  energetic  preaching,  had  full 
scope,  and  were  crowned  with  memorable  success.  He 
held  many  camp-meetings,  at  one  of  which,  in  Prince 
Edward  County,  more  than  eight  hundred  souls  were 
converted  in"  a  single  week.  Every  interest  of  the 
Church  received  his  devoted  and  persistent  attention. 
He  was  a  chief  founder  of  Randolph  Macn  College, 
Va.,  and  has  continued  to  be  its  rector  down  to  our  day. 
In  the  General  Conference  of  1832  he  received  a  large 
vote  for  the  episcopate,  and  would  probably  have  been 
elected  had  it  not  been  for  his  connection  with  slavery. 
Possessing  surpassing  capacity  for  business,  he  was 
often  called  upon  for  important  services  by  both  Church 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCII.        217 

and  State.  Bangs  nominated  him  for  the  Cincinnati 
Book  Agency,  and  others  for  that  of  Xcw  York  in  1836. 
I  lis  fellow-citizens  repeatedly  nominated  him  for  Con- 
gress; but  lie  declined  the  honor  as  a  detraction  from 
his  ministerial  office.  The  general  government  offered 
him  the  governorship  of  Illinois  when  it  was  a  territory. 
President  Adams  solicited  him  to  accept  the  same  office 
in  the  territory  of  Arkansas,  and  President  Tyler  tha* 
of  Comptroller  of  the  Treasury;  but  his  answer  was 
that  "he  could  not  come  down"  to  such  positions.  He 
took  an  active  part  in  the  measures  that  resulted  in  the 
division  of  the  Church  in  1844,  and  the  organization  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South;  shared  in  its 
convention  at  Louisville,  Ky.,  in  1845  ;  was  the  president 
pro  tempore  of  its  first  General  Conference  at  Peters- 
burgh,  Ya. ;  and  was  there  elected  its  first  Book  Agent. 
In  1854  he  was  made  one  of  its  bishops  at  Columbus, 
Georgia. 

John  Early  still  lives,  after  one  of  the  most  la- 
borious careers  in  the  history  of  the  American  Meth- 
odist itinerancy.  One  who  has  well  known  him  says 
that  "he  has  probably  received  more  persons  into 
the  Methodist  Church  than  any  man  in  it.  The  ac- 
counts he  can  give  of  scenes  in  Conferences,  in  churches, 
on  the  road,  in  social  circles,  or  around  the  sick  bed,  are 
'telling  beyond  description.'  As  a  presiding  officer  we 
seldom  see  his  equal  for  precision,  dispatch,  and  busi- 
ness. His  preaching  is  always  dignified,  simple,  and 
impressive,  and  often  perfectly  irresistible  j  thousands  oi 
Bonis,  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  are  the  seals  of  his  min- 
istry. Be  -till  retains  this  power;  his  Large  blue  eye 
yet  flashes  with  a  tranquil  and  holy  zeal;  his  powerful 
voice  though  affected  by  age,  yet,  like  the  blast  of  a 
trumpet,  peals  forth  the  invincible  truth,  and  his  ei 


218  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  vigorous  form  is  yet  capable  of  much  labor.  His 
knowledge  of  character  is  intuitive,  his  friendship  in- 
violable, his  firmness  inflexible,  his  house  the  home  ol 
hospitality  and  social  happiness;  and  if  there  be  in  his 
well-balanced  character  one  feature  more  prominent 
than  the  rest,  it  is,  that  in  the  functions  of  the  epis- 
copal office,  he  never  sacrifices  the  interests  of  the 
Church  to  his  prejudices  or  his  friendships ;  if  one 
must  suffer,  it  is  always  his  friend  or  himself."  3  At 
the  Southern  General  Conference  in  New  Orleans,  I860, 
he  obtained  a  release  from  his  episcopal  duties  on  ac- 
count of  his  advanced  age  ;  but  he  still  sojourns  among 
the  Conferences  and  Churches,  a  welcome  guest,  ven- 
erated for  his  long  services,  and  laboring  according  to 
his  strength. 

The  next  year  after  Early's  admission  to  the  itiner 
ancy  another  young  man,  who  was  to  attain  episcopal 
dignity  and  national  reputation,  entered  the  ministry  in 
the  South  Carolina  Conference.  Major  William  Capers 
was  of  Huguenotic  ancestry,  and  a  brave  officer  of  the 
Revolution,  fighting  in  the  battles  of  Fort  Moultrie  and 
Eutaw,  suffering  in  the  siege  of  Charleston,  and  famous 
in  the  band  of  Marion's  men.  After  the  war  he  became 
a  devoted  Methodist,  under  the  ministry  of  Henry  Willis, 
in  Charleston.  At  his  winter  residence,  a  plantation  in 
St.  Thomas's  Parish,  S.  C,  was  born,  in  1790,  his  son, 
William  Capers,  one  of  the  most  representative  men  of 
American  Methodism  for  nearly  half  a  century.  He 
was  early  sent  to  a  boarding  school,  was  entered  as  a 
sophomore  in  the  South  Carolina  College  in  his  sixteenth 
year,  and  subsequently  studied  law  in  Charleston.  The 
fairest  prospect  of  professional  success  and  political  dis- 
tinction appealed  to  his  youthful  ambition.  His  tem- 
8  Letter  of  Rev.  George  Rosser  to  the  author. 


MKTIIODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  219 

perament  was  vivid,  brilliant,  and  generous  He  loved 
society,  and  was  gayest  of  the  gay;  but  his  Methodistie 
domestic  training  had  touched  the  deeper  susceptibili- 
ties of  Ills  soul.  It  had  preserved  him  from  youthful 
vices,  and,  in  1806,  at  a  camp-meeting  on  the  estate 
of  Rembert,  of  Rembert  Hall,  (so  historical  in  early 
Methodism,)  his  conscience  was  thoroughly  awakened. 
After  a  short  period  of  healthful  religious  progress  he 
became  the  victim  of  a  morbid  delusion,  (sanctioned,  by 
the  current  Calvinistic  theology,  but  denied  by  Meth- 
odism,) under  which  he  suffered  for  about  two  years, 
and  which  deterred  him  from  an  open  profession  of  his 
faith.  Meanwhile  his  father  had  also  been  led  astray 
by  the  schism  of  Hammett  in  Charleston,  and  had  lost 
the  life,  if  not  the  form,  of  his  piety.  In  1808  his  sister 
was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting  in  the  Rembert  neigh- 
borhood, and  returned  home  exemplifying  the  power 
and  peace  of  the  gospel.  An  affecting  scene  soon  fol- 
lowed, which  he  describes:4  "It  grew  night;  supper 
was  over;  it  was  warm,  and  we  were  sitting  in  a 
piazza  open  to  the  southwest  breeze  which  fans  our 
summer  evenings.  My  sister  was  singing  with  a  soft, 
clear  voice  some  of  the  songs  of  the  camp-meeting, 
and  as  she  paused,  my  father  touched  my  shoulder 
with  his  hand,  and  slowly  walked  away.  I  followed 
him  till  he  had  reached  the  furthest  end  of  the 
piazza  on  another  side  of  the  house,  when,  turning  to 
me,  he  expressed  himself  in  a  few  brief  words,  to  the 
effect  that  he  felt  himself  to  have  been  for  a  long  time 
in  a  backslidden  state,  and  that  he  must  forthwith  ac- 
knowledge the  grace  of  God  in  his  children  or  perish. 
Bia  words  were  few,  but  they  were  enough,  and  >trong 

•  In  his  very  interesting  autobiography,  given  in  Bishop  Wightmun'8 
Hie,  IS!  3L 

D— 15  ■ 


220  HISTORY    OF    THE 

enough.  I  sank  to  my  knees  and  burst  into  tears  at  the 
utterance  of  them,  while  for  a  moment  he  stood  trem- 
bling by  me,  and  then  bade  me  get  the  books.  The 
Bible  was  put  on  the  table ;  the  family  came  together. 
He  read  the  hundred  and  third  psalm,  and  then  he 
kneeled  down  and  prayed  as  if  he  felt  indeed  that  lift* 
or  death,  heaven  or  hell,  depended  on  the  issue.  That 
was  the  hour  of  grace  and  mercy,  grace  restored  to  my 
father  as  in  times  of  my  infancy,  and  mercy  to  me  in 
breaking  the  snare  of  the  fowler  that  my  soul  might 
escape." 

His  law  books  were  laid  aside  for  the  Bible.  We 
have  already  seen  William  Gassaway  summoning  him 
out  to  accompany  him  around  a  circuit.  He  went  to 
Camden  to  meet  Gassaway  for  the  purpose,  and  diffi- 
dently took  refuge  in  an  inn,  at  the  door  of  which  the 
venerable  Rembert,  who  was  passing,  met  him,  and 
exhorted  him  to  go  with  Gassaway.  He  found  Ken- 
nedy with  the  latter,  and  accompanied  them  to  the 
church.  Kennedy  preached,  and  afterward  beckoned 
him  to  the  pulpit,  where  Gassaway,  who  sat  in  the  desk, 
cried  out  to  him,  "Exhort !"  He  did  so,  and  thus  began 
his  distinguished  ministerial  career. 

He  continued  to  go  round  the  circuit,  laboring  ener- 
getically, and  at  a  camp-meeting  at  Renibert's  met 
Asbury,  and  was  licensed  to  preach,  though  he  was  not 
yet  through  his  probation  in  the  Church.  His  inter- 
view there  with  the  bishop  was  a  characteristic  scene. 
His  father  had  long  been  alienated  from  Asbury  (for* 
merly  his  honored  guest)  by  the  Hammett  schism. 
"I  was  introduced,"  be  writes,  "to  Bishop  Asbury 
immediately  on  his  first  coining  to  the  camp-meeting, 
as  I  happened  to  be  in  the  preachers'  tent  at  the  time  of 
his   arrival.     I   approached   him   timidly,   you   may  be 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         221 

sore,  and  with  a  feeling  of  profound  veneration  ;   but 
All,'  said  be,  'this  is  the  baby;  come  and  let  me  hug 

you;'  meaning  that  I  was  the  baby  when  he  was  last  at 
my  father's  house.  On  my  father's  entering  the  tent, 
he  r«»se  hastily  from  his  seat  and  met  him  with  his  arms 
extended,  and  they  embraced  each  other  with  mutual 
emotion.  It  had  been  some  seventeen  years  since  they 
had  seen  each  other,  and  yet  the  bishop  asked  after 
Sally  and  Gabriel  as  if  it  had  been  but  a  few  months, 
and  repeated  gleefully,  '  I  have  got  the  baby.'  It  was 
evident  that  no  common  friendship  had  subsisted  be- 
tween them;  and  how  much  happier  had  those  years 
of  estrangement  been  to  my  honored  father  if  they 
had  been  passed  in  the  fellowship  which  he  had  been 
seduced  to  leave.  I  hate  schism;  I  abhor  it  as  the  very 
track  and  trail  of  him  who  'as  a  roaring  lion  walketh 
about  seeking  whom  he  may  devour.'" 

In  the  last  month  of  1808  young  Capers  was  received 
by  the  Conference,  and  appointed  to  the  Wateree  Cir- 
cuit, on  which  he  had  to  fill  twenty-four  appointments 
every  four  weeks.  He  had  formidable  labors  and  trials, 
and  was  well  initiated.  In  1809  he  traveled  Pee-Dee 
Circuit,  where  he  was  especially  devoted  to  the  religious 
welfare  of  the  colored  people.  He  found  many  of  them 
eminently  pious,  and  some  as  eminently  useful.  One  of 
his  churches,  at  Fayetteville,  had  been  founded  by  a 
faithful  negro,  whose  name  has  thereby  become  historic 
in  the  annals  of  the  Conference.  "The  most  remark- 
able man,"  he  says,  "  in  Fayetteville  when  I  went 
there,  and  who  died  during  my  stay,  was  a  negro  by 
the  name  of  Henry  Evans,  who  was  confessedly  the 
father  of  the  Methodist  Chnrch,  white  and  black,  in 
Fayetteville,  and  the  best  preacher  of  hie  time  in  that 
quarter,  and  who  was  so  remarkable  as  to  bave  become 


222  HISTORY     OF    THE 

the  greatest  curiosity  of  the  town,  insomuch  that  distin- 
guished visitors  hardly  felt  that  they  might  pass  a 
Sunday  in  Fayetteville  without  hearing  him  preach. 
Evans  was  from  Virginia ;  a  shoemaker  by  trade,  and, 
I  think,  was  born  free.  He  became  a  Christian  and  a 
Methodist  quite  young,  and  was  licensed  to  preach  in 
Virginia.  While  yet  a  young  man  he  determined  to 
remove  to  Charleston,  S.  C,  thinking  he  might  succeed 
best  there  at  his  trade.  But  having  reached  Fayette- 
ville on  his  way  to  Charleston,  his  spirit  was  stirred  at 
perceiving  that  the  people  of  his  race  in  that  town 
were  wholly  given  to  profanity  and  lewdness,  never 
hearing  preaching  of  any  denomination.  This  determ- 
ined him  to  stop  in  Fayetteville,  and  he  began  to 
preach  to  the  negroes  with  great  effect.  The  town 
council  interfered,  and  nothing  in  his  power  could  pre- 
vail with  them  to  permit  him  to  preach.  He  then 
withdrew  to  the  sand-hills,  out  of  town,  and  held  meet- 
ings in  the  woods,  changing  his  appointments  from 
place  to  place.  No  law  was  violated,  while  the  council 
was  effectually  eluded,  and  so  the  opposition  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  mob.  These  he  worried  out  by 
changing  his  appointments,  so  that  when  they  went  to 
work  their  will  upon  him,  he  was  preaching  somewhere 
else.  Meanwhile,  whatever  the  most  honest  purpose  of 
a  simple  heart  could  do  to  reconcile  his  enemies,  was 
employed  by  him  for  that  end.  He  eluded  no  one  in 
private,  but  sought  opportunities  to  explain  himself; 
avowed  the  purity  of  his  intentions,  and  even  begged 
to  be  subjected  to  the  scrutiny  of  any  surveillance  that 
might  be  thought  proper  to  prove  his  inoffensiveness ; 
anything,  so  that  he  might  but  be  allowed  to  preach. 
Happily  for  him  and  the  cause  of  religion,  his  honest 
countenance  and  earnest  pleadings  were  soon  powerfully 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        223 

seconded  by  the  fruits  of  his  1  ibors.  One  after  another 
began  to  suspect  their  servants  of  attending  his  preach 
nig,  not  because  they  were  made  worse,  but  wonderfully 
better.  The  effect  on  the  public  morals  of  the  negroes, 
too,  began  to  be  seen,  particularly  as  regarded  their 
habits  on  Sunday,  and  drunkenness,  and  it  was  not  long 
before  the  mob  was  called  off  by  a  change  in  the  current 
of  opinion,  and  Evans  was  allowed  to  preach  in  town. 
At  that  time  there  was  not  a  single  church  edifice  in 
town,  and  but  one  congregation,  (Presbyterian,)  which 
worshiped  in  what  was  called  the  State-house,  under 
which  was  the  market,  and  it  was  plainly  Evans  or 
nobody  to  preach  to  the  negroes.  Xow,  too,  of  the 
mistresses  there  were  not  a  few,  and  some  masters,  who 
were  brought  to  think  that  the  preaching  which  had 
proved  so  beneficial  to  their  servants  might  be  good  for 
them  also,  and  the  famous  negro  preacher  had  some 
whites  as  well  as  blacks  t<>  hear  him.  From  these  the 
gracious  influence  spread  to  others,  and  a  meeting- 
house was  built.  It  was  a  frame  of  wood,  weather- 
boarded  only  on  the  outside,  without  plastering,  about 
fifty  feet  long  by  thirty  wide.  Seats,  distinctly  separ- 
ated, were  at  first  appropriated  to  the  whites,  near  the 
pulpit.  But  Evans  had  already  become  famous,  and 
these  seats  were  insufficient.  Indeed,  the  negroes 
seemed  likely  to  lose  their  preacher,  negro  though  he 
was;  while  the  whites,  crowded  out  of  their  seats,  took 
possession  of  tho>e  in  the  rear.  Meanwhile  Evans  had 
represented  to  the  preacher  of  Bladen  Circuit  how 
thingC  going,  and  induced  him   t«»  take   his   meel 

tag-house  into  the  circuit,  and  constitute  :i  <  Ihurch  there. 
And  now  there  was  do  loi  ger  room  for  the  negroes  in 

the  house  when  Evan-  preached  ;  and,  for  the  accommo- 
ti.ni  of  both  classes,  the  weatherboards  were  knocked 


224  HISTORY     OF    THE 

off,  and  sheds  were  added  to  the  house  on  either  side ; 
the  whites  occupying  the  whole  of  the  original  building, 
and  the  negroes  these  sheds  as  a  part  of  the  same  house. 
Evans's  dwelling  was  a  shed  at  the  pulpit  end  of  the 
church.  And  that  was  the  identical  state  of  the  case 
when  I  was  pastor.  Often  was  I  in  that  shed,  and 
much  to  my  edification.  I  have  not  known  many 
preachers  who  appeared  more  conversant  with  Scrip- 
ture than  Evans,  or  whose  conversation  was  more  in- 
structive as  to  the  things  of  God.  He  was  a  Boaner- 
ges, and  in  his  duty  feared  not  the  face  of  man.  He 
died  during  my  stay  in  Fayetteville  in  1810.  The  death 
of  such  a  man  could  not  but  be  triumphant,  and  his  was 
distinguishingly  so.  I  was  with  him  just  before  he  died. 
His  last  breath  was  drawn  in  the  act  of  pronouncing, 
1  Cor.  xv,  57,  'Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the 
victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.'  On  the  Sunday 
before  his  death  the  little  door  between  his  humble  shed 
and  the  chancel  where  I  stood  was  opened,  and  the 
dying  man  entered  for  a  last  farewell  to  his  people. 
He  was  almost  too  feeble  to  stand  at  all,  but,  support- 
ing himself  by  the  railing  of  the  chancel,  he  said,  '  I 
have  come  to  say  my  last  word  to  you.  It  is  this  : 
None  but  Christ.  Three  times  I  have  hau  my  life  in 
jeopardy  for  preaching  the  gospel  to  you.  Three  times 
I  have  broken  the  ice  on  the  edge  of  the  water  and 
swum  across  the  Cape  Fear  to  preach  the  gospel  to  you, 
and  now,  if  in  my  last  hour  I  could  trust  to  that,  or  to 
anything  else  but  Christ  crucified,  for  my  salvation,  all 
should  be  lost,  and  my  soul  perish  forever.'  A  noble 
testimony !  worthy,  not  of  Evans  only,  but  St.  Paul. 
His  funeral  at  the  church  was  attended  by  a  greater 
concourse  of  persons  than  had  been  seen  on  any  funeral 
occasion  before.      The  whole  community  appeared  to 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         225 

mourn  his  death,  and  the  universal  feeling  seemed  to 
be  that  in  honoring  the  memory  of  Henry  Evans  we 
were  paying  a  tribute  to  virtue  and  religion.  He  was 
buried  under  the  chancel  of  the  church  of  which  he  had 
been  in  so  remarkable  a  manner  the  founder." 

At  the  Conference1  in  the  latter  part  of  1810,  Capers 
was  sent  to  Charleston.  At  this  time  there  were  sev- 
enty-four preachers  belonging  to  the  Conference,  em- 
ployed on  thirty-nine  circuits  and  stations,  of  which 
twenty  four  belonged  to  South  Carolina,  and  that  part 
of  Xorth  Carolina  lying  south  of  Cape  Fear  and  the 
head-waters  of  Yadkin ;  fourteen  belonged  to  Georgia, 
and  there  were  two  preachers  employed  as  mission- 
aries in  Alabama.  The  returns  gave  seventeen  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  eighty-eight  whites,  and  eight 
thousand  two  hundred  and  two  colored  members. 
Charleston  had  yet  but  two  churches,  Cumberland-street 
and  Bethel;  Hammett's  "Trinity  Church"  having  not 
yet  been  ceded  to  the  denomination.  The  antislavery 
measures  of  Methodism  had  arrayed  the  community 
against  it.  Even  native  preachers,  belonging  to  slave- 
holding  families,  like  Capers,  were  hardly  allowed  to 
preach  to  the  colored  people  for  miles  around  the  city; 
but  there  were  some  "  extraordinary  colored  men,"  who 
were  u  raised  up  for  the  exigencies  of  these  times  in  the 
city  Churches,  such  as  Castile  Selby,  Amos  Baxter, 
Thomas  Smith,  Peter  Simpson,  Smart  Simpson,  Hairy 
Bull,  Richard  Ilalloway,  Alek  Harlston,  and  others, 
men  of  deep  piety  and  natural  talents,  who  were  made 
preachers,  and  were  sent  out  by  Capers  and  his  col- 
leagues to  minister  to  the  slaves  on  the  plantations  in  all 
directions.  It  was  thus  that  Methodism  got  its  power- 
ful hold  on  the  black  population  of  South  Carolina, 
They    labored    successfully   on    Goose    Creek,    Cooper 


226  HISTORY    OF    THE 

River,  Wanda,  in  St.  Paul's  parish,  St.  James,  St, 
John,  and  Wadmalaw  Islands,  even  as  far  as  Pon-Pon 
River.  The  opposition  of  masters  to  the  labors  of  white 
preachers  among  the  slaves  led  to  a  compromise  of  the 
stringent  policy  of  the  Church  against  slavery.  About 
this  time  we  perceive  the  tendency  to  a  more  moderate 
course  in  even  Asbury's  resolute  mind.  In  1809  he 
writes,  in  the  South,  "  We  are  defrauded  of  great  num- 
bers by  the  pains  that  are  taken  to  keep  the  blacks  from 
us  ;  their  masters  are  afraid  of  the  influence  of  our  prin- 
ciples. Would  not  an  amelioration  in  the  condition  and 
treatment  of  slaves  have  produced  more  practical  good 
to  the  poor  Africans  than  any  attempt  at  their  emanci- 
pation f  The  state  of  society,  unhappily,  does  not  admit 
of  this ;  besides,  the  blacks  are  deprived  of  the  means  of 
instruction ;  who  will  take  the  pains  to  lead  them  into 
the  way  of  salvation,  and  watch  over  them,  that  they 
may  not  stray,  but  the  Methodists?  Well,  now  their 
masters  will  not  let  them  come  to  hear  us.  What  is  the 
personal  liberty  of  the  African,  which  he  may  abuse, 
to  the  salvation  of  his  soul !  How  may  it  be  com- 
pared?"5 This  was  an  honest  but  fatal  expediency. 
Asbury  took  his  bias  from  the  preachers  and  planters 
of  the  South.  It  was  the  crisis  of  Methodist  antislavery 
opinion.  Steadily  hereafter  compromise  and  retrogres- 
sion mark  the  policy  of  the  Church,  followed  at  last 
by  fierce  reaction  controversy,  schism,  rebellion,  and 
devastating  war. 

Capers's  ministry  in  Charleston  made  a  profound 
impression,  and  abated  the  public  prejudice;  for  his 
social  rank,  as  well  as  his  superior  culture  and  tal- 
ents, commanded  respect.  He  continued  his  itinerant 
labors,  with  increasing  success,  till  the  Conference  o1 
s  Asbury's  Journals,  iii,  p.  298.     The  italics  are  bis  own. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  '227 

1814,  when,  being  now  a  married  man,  lie  deemed  it 
expedient  to  locate.  He  procured  a  farm,  cultivated  it 
diligently  on  week-days,  and  preached  on  Sundays  ;  but 
it  was  not  long  before  his  wife,  of  whom  he  was  pas- 
si  uiately  fond,  suddenly  died  in  her  new  home.  He  felt 
bnat  he  had  erred,  that  he  must  return  to  the  itinerancy 
t<>  Buffer,  whatever  might  be  his  lot.  In  1818  he  was 
readmitted  to  the  Conference,  and  thenceforward  never 
swerved  from  his  work.  His  influence  throughout  the 
South,  and  throughout  the  denomination,  became  com- 
manding. He  was  sent  to  the  General  Conference,  and 
to  England  as  representative  of  the  American  Church, 
appointed  collegiate  professor,  and  president,  editor, 
missionary  secretary,  and  at  last,  after  the  division  of 
the  denomination,  elected  bishop  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  South,  which  office  he  maintained  with 
unremitted  labor  till  his  death  in  1855, 

He  was  five  feet  nine  inches  in  stature,  with  deli- 
cately moulded  features,  expressive  of  uncommon  re- 
finement, intelligence,  aud  benevolence.  His  eyes  were 
black  and  lustrous,  his  voice  musical;  his  manners 
marked  by  perfect  amenity.  In  the  pulpit  he  was 
usually  mild,  suasive,  and  instructive,  occasionally  ex- 
ueedingly  impressive  and  powerful.  He  seldom  or 
never  used  formal  "divisions'7  in  his  sermons,  but 
maintained  a  central  thought,  which  he  thoroughly 
elaborated,  but  not  without  the  freesl  digressions. 
1I«-  was  a  restless  worker,  and  spent  "a  handsome  pat- 
rimony for  the  Church,"  was  often  in  want,  and  died 
without  other  resources  than  his  ministerial  salary.  lie 
was  perhaps  the  most  important,  if  not  the  mosl  respon- 
sible, man  in  the  division  of  the  Church  in  1844,  an 
event  which  will  hen-after  require  a  further  estimate  of 
iii-  historic  relations  t<>  American  Methodism. 


228  HISTORY     OF    THE 

Still  another  youth,  destined  to  the  episcopal  office, 
was  given  to  the  itinerancy  by  the  South  the  next  year 
after  that  in  which  Capers  entered  the  ministry.  Bev- 
erly Waugh  was  born  in  Fairfax  County,  Va.,  in  1789, 
became  a  Methodist  under  the  ministry  of  Dr.  Thomas 
F.  Sargent,  in  Alexandria,  Va.,  in  his  fifteenth  year,  and 
joined  the  Baltimore  Conference  in  1809,  when  hardly 
twenty  years  old.  His  first  two  years  in  the  ministry 
were  spent  on  Virginia  circuits,  one  of  them  among 
the  mountains  of  the  Greenbrier  region,  where  he  had 
the  severest  training  of  the  itinerancy.  In  1811  he 
was  appointed  to  Washington,  D.  C,  and  thencefor- 
ward his  solid  abilities  and  high  character  secured  him 
the  most  important  positions  of  his  Conference.  He 
was  repeatedly  appointed  to  Washington,  Baltimore, 
Georgetown,  Frederick,  etc.,  down  to  1828,  when  the 
General  Conference  elected  him  Book  Agent  at  New 
York,  where  he  conducted,  with  ability  and  energy,  the 
momentous  publishing  business  of  the  Church  for  eight 
years.  He  had  now  become  one  of  the  prominent  men 
of  the  denomination,  not  so  much  by  brilliant  or  popular 
qualities,  as  by  his  well-balanced  faculties,  his  consum- 
mate prudence,  his  exalted  character,  his  devout  temper, 
Christian  amenity,  and  effective  preaching.  The  Cin- 
cinnati General  Conference  of  1836  elected  him  to  the 
episcopate,  and  for  twenty-two  years  he  sustained  that 
most  onerous  office  with  extraordinary  diligence,  not- 
withstanding his  precarious  health,  impaired  by  his 
labors  in  the  Book  Concern.  He  never  failed,  in  a 
single  instance,  to  attend  his  Conferences.  These  were 
years  of  stormy  controversies  in  the  Church,  and  he  was 
worn  and  wan  with  care  and  fatigue.  It  has  been 
estimated  that  the  average  number  of  ministerial  ap- 
pointments made  by  him  per  annum  was  five  hundred 


METHODIST     KP1SCOPAL    CHURCH.         2'29 

And  fifty.  The  yearly  redistribution  of  such  a  number 
of  preachers  and  their  families  (for  much  of  the  time 
from  Maine  to  Texas,  from  Michigan  to  Georgia)  in- 
volved an  amount  of  anxiety  known  only  to  the  incum- 
bents of  the  episcopate,  and  hardly  known  to  them  since 
that  day.  Meanwhile  he  was  incessantly  laboring  in 
the  pulpit,  in- class-meetings,  and  to  no  small  extent  in 
pastoral  visitation,  for  wherever  he  stopped,  for  tern 
porary  rest,  in  his  episcopal  travels,  he  gave  himself 
with  devout  earnestness  to  such  opportunities.  lie 
suddenly  died  in  his  work,  by  disease  of  the  heart,  at 
Baltimore  in  1858. 

Beverly  AVaugh  was  both  a  good  and  an  able  man, 
and  the  Church  suffers  loss  by  the  lack  hitherto  of  any 
biographical  record  of  his  useful  life,  by  which  his  his- 
toric services  might  be  adequately  appreciated.  He 
was  dignified  in  person,  with  calm,  benign,  though  care- 
worn features,  brilliant  eyes,  shaded  by  heavy  eyebrows, 
a  voice  of  sonorous  distinctness,  and  manners  grave,  but 
endearingly  cordial  and  affectionate.  He  retained  to 
the  last  the  original  plain  costume  of  the  ministry.  In 
the  pulpit  he  was  often  exceedingly  powerful ;  in  the 
episcopal  chair  prompt,  without  hurry;  cautious,  though 
firm.  He  was  staunchly  "conservative"  in  his  opinions, 
not  only  of  Methodistic  principles  and  traditions,  but  of 
the  public  questions  which  kept  the  Church  agitated 
with  controversies  during  his  episcopal  administration, 
a  fact  which  will  give  him  prominence  in  the  historical 
record  of  those  memorable  times. 

John  Davis  joined  the  Baltimore  Conference  the  year 
following  Waugh's  admission,  and  became,  as  his  breth- 
ren testify,   "a   prince  in  Israel."6     He   was  born  in 
Northumberland  County.  Va.,  in   1787.      His  parents 
•Minutes  of  1851 


230  HISTORY     OF    THE 

were  Methodists  of  the  primitive  type,  and  trained  him 
carefully  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Church.  He  attributed 
Ills  conversion,  in  his  nineteenth  year,  to  the  ineffaceable 
impression  of  a  lesson  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  heard 
while  sitting  upon  his  father's  knee  while  yet  a  child. 
"Ye  must  be  born  again,"  was  a  truth  in  that  tas>son 
which  perpetually  sounded  in  his  conscience.  It  drew 
him,  at  last,  to  seek  peace  of  mind  in  prayer,  in  a  wood, 
where,  after  much  anguish,  he  found  it.  He  had  never 
seen  any  one  converted,  nor  witnessed  an  example  of 
religious  ecstacy ;  yet  his  new  experience  compelled  him 
to  "  make  the  wood  echo  with  the  shout  of  '  Glory  ! 
glory  !  glory  to  God  ! '  "  He  soon  after  began  to  "  ex- 
hort," and  in  1809  was  called  out  by  Hamilton  Jefferson, 
presiding  elder,  to  Berkeley  Circuit.  The  next  year  he 
was  received  into  the  Conference.  His  earliest  appoint- 
ments were  on  rugged  circuits  of  the  western  mount- 
ains ;  but  he  soon  became  eminent  among  his  brethren, 
and  occupied  the  most  conspicuous  stations  in  Balti- 
more, Washington,  and  elsewhere.  He  was  presiding 
elder  during  many  years;  a  delegate  to  the  General 
Conference  at  every  session,  save  two,  after  1816,  till 
his  death,  and  a  chief  counselor  there,  though  never 
given  to  speechmaking.  He  was  a  practical  and  effect- 
ive preacher,  and  gathered  into  the  Church  hosts  of 
members.  In  1818  his  labors  in  Baltimore  were  at- 
tended by  an  extraordinary  religious  impression,  which 
resulted  in  the  conversion  of  about  a  thousand  souls  in 
a  few  months.  He  was  devoted  to  all  the  interests  of 
his  denomination,  and  especially  labored  for  the  en- 
dowment of  Carlisle  College.  He  persisted  steadily  in 
his  itinerant  career  till  his  infirmities  compelled  him  to 
retreat  to  the  honored  ranks  of  his  "  superannuated " 
brethren  in  1846,  and  died  in  1853,  in  the  sixty-sixth 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CUT  PC  IT.  231 

year  of  his  age  and  the  forty-fourth  of  his  ministry, 
exclaiming,  '"Happy!  happy!  peaceful!  Tell  the  Con- 
ference all  is  peace  !  " 

In  stature  he  was  tall,  slight,  but  vigorous.  He  was 
energetic  in  his  movements,  always  appearing  to  have 
something  to  do.  In  familiar  life  he  was  exceedingly 
agreeable,  a  good  converser,  and  given  to  anecdote, 
especially  respecting  the  adventurous  liie  of  the  primi- 
tive itinerancy.  With  his  friend,  Alfred  Griffith,  he 
was  recognized  by  the  Baltimore  Conference  as  one  of 
its  chief  sages  and  leaders.  So  sound  was  his  judgment, 
that  his  clearly  expressed  opinion  was  usually  deemed 
decisive  of  questions  without  further  argument.  He 
loved  Methodism  with  an  enthusiastic  affection.  In 
reviewing  his  lone  and  self-sac rificing  career  late  in 
life,  he  said  to  his  family,  "  I  would  rather  be  a 
Methodist  preacher,  with  the  means  of  doing  the  little 
good  I  have  done,  than  be  the  President  of  the  United 
States." 

Robert  R.  Roberts,  whom  we  have  heretofore  found 
in  the  ultramontane  woods  of  Pennsylvania,  became  a 
prominent  laborer  among  these  evangelists  in  1808. 
He  made  his  way  this  year  to  the  General  Conference 
at  Baltimore,  traveling  on  horseback,  with  but  one  dol- 
lar in  his  pocket  for  the  journey,  and  carrying  with  him 
oats  for  hi-  horse,  and  bread  and  cheese  for  himself. 
He  had  but  five  cents  when  he  arrived  at  the  session. 
His  clothes  were  so  worn  out  that  an  unknown  Method- 
ist of  the  city,  after  hearing  him  preach,  sent  a  tailor 
to  his  lodgings,  and  had  him  reclothed  from  head  to 
foot.  Hi-  preaching  produced  Bach  an  impression  that 
he  was  appointed  to  the  Light-street  Church  imme- 
diately after  the  Conference,  and  remained  there,  and  at 
Alexandria  and  Georgetown,  till  1813,  a  powerful  and 


232  HISTORY    OP     THE 

successful  laborer.  After  three  more  years,  spent  in 
Philadelphia,  and  on  its  district,  his  superior  character 
and  capacity  commanded  such  general  regard  that  he 
was  elected  to  the  episcopate,  and  commenced  his  travels 
over  all  the  United  States.  As  the  period  draws  to  its 
close,  names  familiar  and  dear  to  us  all  nearly  half  a 
century  later,  begin  to  multiply,  such  as  Tucker,  Beard, 
Hamilton,  Tippett,  and  others ;  within  our  present 
chronological  limits  they  were  graduating  toward  the 
orders  of  elders — modest  young  evangelists,  trying  their 
strength  on  hard  circuits,  but  full  of  promise,  and  des- 
tined to  afford  the  historian  hereafter  some  of  his 
choicest  examples  of  events  and  characters. 

Such  are  a  few,  and  but  a  few,  of  the  itinerants 
of  the  South  in  our  present  period — the  second  gen- 
eration of  Methodist  itinerants — worthy  recruits  of  the 
elder  corps,  which  was  still  mighty  in  the  field,  led  by 
Lee,  Bruce,  Roberts,  Wells,  Everett,  Daniel  Asbury, 
George,  Reed,  Snethen,  Shinn,  Henry  Smith,  Roszell, 
Christopher  Sprye,  Gassoway,  Douglass,  Mills,  and 
similar  men.  Many  others  of  equal  note,  but  of  scan- 
tier record,  might  be  mentioned,  some  of  whom  will  be 
noticed  at  more  apposite  points  of  our  narrative. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         2oo 


CHAPTER  III. 

METHODISM   IN  THE   SOUTH,  1804-1820:  CONCLUDED. 

^sbury's  Last  Visits  to  the  South— His  Episcopal  Equipage  —  Jobn 
Bond  —  Rembert  Hall  —Perry  Hall  — Last  Interview  with  Otterbein 
—  Asbury  iu  Old  Age  —  Ministerial  Celibacy —  Prosperity— As- 
bury's  indomitable  Persistence  —  Southern  Methodism  —  Obituary 

Notices. 

Asbury  spent  a  portion  of  every  winter  of  these  years 
in  the  South.  He  made  it  an  official  visit  every  year 
of  his  episcopal  life  save  one,  and,  including  his  prior 
excursion  thither,  traveled  over  more  or  less  of  its  terri- 
tory seventy  times,  including  both  trips  to  and  from  it, 
which  were  always  on  different  routes.  His  journals 
have  more  than  their  wonted  brevity  during  the  present 
period,  and  are  hardly  capable  of  historical  use.  He 
was  repeatedly  accompanied  by  his  colleagues,  What- 
coat  and  M'Kendree,  and  habitually  by  an  elder  as 
traveling  companion.  Snethen,  Hutchinson,  Morrell, 
Jesse  Lee,  and  Hitt  had,  thus  far,  successively  attended 
him.  Crawford,  Boehm,  French,  and  Bond  were  with 
him  through  the  present  journeys.  He  rode,  most  of 
the  time,  in  an  unpretentious  carriage.  On  one  occa- 
sion, accompanied  by  M'Kendree,  in  Georgia,  be  writes: 
••  We  are  riding  in  a  poor  thirty-dollar  chaise,  in  part- 
nership, two  bishops  of  us;  but  it  must  be  confessed  it 
tallies  well  with  the  weight  of  our  purees.  What 
bishops]     But  we  li<       \  news,  and  we  have  great 

times,  and  each  Western,  Southern,  and  the  Virginia 
Conference,  will   have   one    thousand   souls   converted 


234  HISTORY    OF    THE 

to  God ;  and  is  not  this  an  equivalent  for  a  light 
purse  ?  and  are  we  not  well  paid  for  starving  ana 
toil  ?  Yes ;  glory  be  to  God ! "  An  ax  was  a  neces- 
sary accompaniment  to  clear  the  roads.  "  O  my  ex- 
cellent son,  John  Bond ! "  he  exclaims  in  South  Caro- 
lina ;  "  a  tree  had  fallen  across  our  way ;  what  was 
to  be  done  ?  Brother  Bond  sprung  to  the  ax  fastened 
under  our  carriage,  mounted  upon  the  large  limbs, 
hewing  and  hacking,  stroke  after  stroke,  without  in 
termission,  until  he  had  cut  away  five  of  them,  hauling 
them  on  one  side  as  he  severed  them,  so  that  we  passed 
without  difficulty.  Is  there  his  equal  to  be  found  in  the 
United  States?  He  drives  me  along  with  the  utmost 
care  and  tenderness,  he  fills  my  appointments  by  preach 
ing  for  me  when  I  am  disabled,  he  watches  over  me  at 
night  after  the  fatigue  of  driving  all  day,  and  if,  when 
he  is  in  bed  and  asleep,  I  call,  he  is  awake  and  up  in  the 
instant  to  give  me  medicine,  or  to  perform  any  other 
service  his  sick  father  may  require  of  him,  and  this  is 
done  so  readily,  and  with  so  much  patience,  when  my 
constant  infirmities  and  ill  health  require  so  many  and 
oft-repeated  attentions.  The  asthma  presses  sorely  upon 
my  panting  breast.  Lord,  sanctify  all  my  afflictions  ! " 
The  shadows  of  the  evening  of  life  were  falling  upon 
his  great  career,  and  his  pensive  allusions  to  the  passing 
away  of  his  old  friends,  and  the  changes  of  his  old 
homes,  increase  in  frequency  and  sadness  with  every 
year.  "  My  old  Virginia  friends  have  disappeared  from 
the  earth  !  "  he  exclaims  in  1805.  He  still  finds  yearly 
shelter  at  Rembert  Hall,  S.  0. ;  but  he  buries  members 
of  the  endeared  household,  and,  in  1814,  writes  there, 
"  How  my  friends  move  or  waste  away  !  yet  I  live ;  let 
me  live  every  moment."  This  was  his  favorite  home  in 
the  further  south ;  at  its  north  he  always  paused  with 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        235 

delight  at  Perry  Hall;  but  this,  too.  now  reminds  him 
of  the  changes  of  life.  In  1^05  he  says  there,  "At 
Perry  Hall  I  spent  a  night ;  the  house,  spacious  and 
splendid,  was  newly  painted,  and  the  little  grandchil- 
dren were  gay  and  playful;  but  I  and  the  elders  of 
the  house  felt  that  it  was  evening  with  us."  In  1808 
he  "  came  to  it  as  to  a  home  in  mourning."  His  old 
friend  Harry  Gough  was  dead,  and  he  buried  him  with 
tears.  The  old  home  never  ceased  to  be  attractive,  but 
was  ever  afterward  desolate  to  the  veteran  traveler. 
In  1811  he  preached  to  the  family  in  their  private 
chapel,  and  writes,  "All  to  me  seems  yet  to  be  in  sack- 
cloth here;"  and  as  late  as  1813  he  says,  "We  came  to 
Perry  Hall.  Alas,  how  solitary!"1  His  old  friend 
Otterbein  still  lingers  in  Baltimore.  "  I  gave,"  he 
writes  the  same  year,  "  an  evening  to  the  great  Otter- 
bein. I  found  him  placid  and  happy  in  God."  Boehm 
was  with  them,  and  says  "that  was  an  evening  I  shall 
never  forget.  Two  noble  souls  met,  and  their  conversa- 
tion was  rich,  and  full  of  instruction.  They  had  met 
frequently  before.      This  was  their  last  interview  on 

1 "  A  few  months  ago,  accompanied  by  the  Rev.  G.  Haven,  of  the  New 
England  Conference,  the  writer  visited  the  sites,  only  a  few  miles 
apart,  of  Coke-bury  <  College  and  Pern*  Hall,  both  of  which  stately 
edifices,  with  their  chapels  and  'church-going  bells,'  were  burned  to 
the  ground,  the  former  seventy,  the  latter  seventeen  years  ago.  Perry 
Hall  has  been  rebuilt,  hut  without  the  addition  of  the  chapel  and  its 
former  elegance;  yet,  like  it-  predecessor,  it  can  still  be  seen  afar  off. 
The  estate  bas  been  divided  and  sold,  and  now  contains  scarcely  one 
third  of  it -=  original  acres,  and  the  'hall'  is  occupied  by  a  'stranger.' 
Many  of  its  tall  sentinels,  like  those  whom  they  once  guarded,  have 
disappeared,  either  from  decay  or  design,  and  those  that  remain  re- 
semble  the  Btraggling  remnant  of  a  decimated  regiment  We  entered 
it-  spacious  apartments,  some  of  which  were  entirely  empty,  othen 
used  merely  lor  granaries  or  Btore-rooms.  The  prestige  of  the  past, 
I  t  by  the  power  of  association,  was  scarcely  realized.  No  voice 
of  thanksgrvmg  or  praise  greeted  our  ear."  —  D.  Creamer,  Esq.,  ir 
Ladie?"  B  ,  p.  170.     March, 

n 


236  HISTORY    OF    THE 

earth."  The  good  German  divine  was  failing  fast. 
The  next  year  the  bishop  preached  the  "funeral  ser- 
mon "  of  "  the  holy,  the  great  Otterbein,"  as  he  calls 
him.  "  Solemnity,"  he  says,  "  marked  the  silent  meeting 
in  the  German  Church,  where  were  assembled  the  mem- 
bers of  our  Conference,  and  many  of  the  clergy  of  the 
city.  Forty  years  have  I  known  the  retiring  modesty 
of  this  man  of  God,  towering  majestic  above  his 
fellows  in  learning,  wisdom,  and  grace,  yet  seeking  to 
be  known  only  of  God  and  the  people  of  God.  He 
had  been  sixty  years  a  minister,  fifty  years  a  converted 
one." 

His  journals  begin  to  show  the  decay  of  old  age,  though 
he  is  more  cheerful  than  heretofore.  The  goodly  fellow- 
ship of  his  episcopal  colleagues  and  "  traveling  compan- 
ions," and  the  increasingly  eager  welcomes  of  the 
Churches,  which  are  almost  everywhere  crowded  to 
hear  him,  can  hardly  fail  to  exhilarate  him ;  but  he 
becomes  more  punctilious  and  anxious  about  the  great 
cause  which  has  risen  up  under  his  labors.  He  fears  its 
"  temporal "  prosperity ;  he  criticizes  severely  slight 
deviations  from  traditional  usage ;  he  is  alarmed  at  the 
sound  of  a  bell  in  the  cupola  of  a  Methodist  Church, 
and  hopes  "it  will  be  the  last  one;"  he  dreads,  above 
all,  the  marriage  of  the  itinerants ;  it  seems  to  him  to 
menace  almost  fatally  the  whole  ministry  of  Methodism 
in  the  new  world.  He  is  pleased  to  observe  in  the  ex- 
treme South  a  prejudice  in  families  against  the  marriage 
of  their  daughters  with  Methodist  preachers,  and  says : 
"  Thus  involuntary  celibacy  is  imposed  upon  us.  All 
the  better:  care  and  anxiety  about  worldly  possessions 
do- not  stop  us  in  our  course,  and  we  are  saved  from  the 
pollution  of  negro  slavery  and  oppression."  He  rejoices 
to  get  into  the  Virginia  Conference,  where  they  are 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  237 

nearly  all  inveterate  celibates.  At  one  of  its  sessions, 
(in  1809,)  among  eighty-four  preachers  present,  only 
three  had  wives.  "  It  was  called,"  says  Boehm,  who 
was  there,  "  the  ;  Bachelor  Conference.'  We  had  also 
bachelor  bishops.''  M'Kendree  was  with  Asbury. 
The  ktter  "was  delighted,"  adds  Boehm,  "with  the 
appearance  of  the  men.  He  said  'many  of  them  are  the 
most  elegant  young  men  I  have  ever  seen  in  features, 
body,  and  mind ;  they  are  manly,  and  yet  meek.' "  He 
rejoices  in  the  great  prosperity  of  the  Church.  He 
averages  its  congregations  at  a  thousand  hearers  each, 
for  many  in  the  South  and  West  comprised  the  people 
for  miles  around  the  "appointments."  lie  estimated 
the  Methodist  hearers  in  Georgia,  in  1806,  at  one  hund- 
red and  thirty  thousand.  "It  is  quite  probable,"  he 
says,  "  we  congregate  two  hundred  thousand  in  each 
state  on  an  average,  and  if  to  these  we  add  those  who 
hear  us  in  the  two  Canadian  provinces,  and  in  the  Mis- 
>i-sippi  and  Indiana  territories,  it  will  perhaps  be  found 
that  we  preach  to  four  millions  of  people.  What  a 
charge ! " 

Asbury's  maladies  are  still  inveterate,  and  he  moves 
on  only  by  the  indomitable  force  of  his  will.  In  1805 
he  writes:  uMy  eyes  fail.  I  must  keep  them  for  the 
Bible  and  the  Conferences."  Boehm,  with  him  in  the 
far  South  in  1812,  -ays:  u Never  was  he  more  feeble, 
never  less  able  to  travel,  and  yet  he  would  go  on. 
There  was  only  one  thing  that  could  stop  him — the 
pale  horse  and  his  rider.  Having  lost  the  use  of  one 
of  his  feet  by  rheumatism,  I  had  to  carry  him  in  my 
aims  and  place  him  in  his  sulky,  and  then  take  him 
out  and  carry  him  into  a  church  or  private  dwelling, 
and  lie  would  sit  and  preach.  At  Kayetteville  I  carried 
h  m  into  the  church,  and  lie  preached  from  Zech.  i\,  12 


238  HISTORY    OF    THE 

'the  stronghold.'  After  the  sermon  he  ordained  three 
persons.  He  had  one  blister  on  him,  and  I  carried  him 
to  our  host,  who  put  on  three  more.  He  traveled  in 
great  misery.  At  Wilmington  I  carried  him  into 
church,  and  he  preached  in  the  morning,  and  then  mcl 
the  society;  and,  that  not  being  enough  for  a  sick  old 
infirm  bishop,  he  would  preach  again  in  the  evening. 
After  this  he  was  in  such  misery  that  a  poultice  was 
applied  to  mitigate  his  pain.  The  next  day  we  rode 
twenty-four  miles.  The  bishop's  feet  were  so  swollen 
he  could  not  wear  a  shoe.  Almost  any  other  man 
would  have  been  in  bed ;  but  he  loved  his  work  better 
than  his  life.  His  record  on  that  day  is,  '  I  have  a  fever 
and  swelled  feet.'  The  next  day,  '  I  suffer  violent  pain 
in  my  right  foot ;'  and  yet  he  says,  '  I  have  filled  all  my 
appointments,  and  answered  the  letters  received.'  Who 
else  would  have  thus  persevered  amid  pain  and  anguish, 
dying  by  inches,  to  accomplish  so  much  work?"  His 
unparalleled  career  was  drawing  toward  its  close :  but 
we  shall  follow  him  yet  through  many  journies  in  the 
North,  the  East,  the  West,  though  with  but  indistinct 
glimpses. 

These  were  years  of  rife  religious  excitement  through 
most  of  the  South.  The  camp  meeting,  of  the  West, 
was  generally  introduced,  and  from  Bassett's  Woods, 
in  Delaware,  to  Rembert's,  in  South  Carolina,  and  far 
beyond,  in  Georgia,  these  great  occasions  were  of  almost 
continual  occurrence,  attended  sometimes,  says  Asbury, 
by  ten  thousand  people,  and  three  hundred  traveling 
and  local  preachers.  A  thousand  conversions  in  a  week 
are  sometimes  recorded  of  a  single  meeting.  A  per- 
vasive influence  went  forth  from  them  through  the  cir- 
cuits and  districts,  and  Methodism  spread  into  almost 
every  city,  town,  and   settlement   of  the  South.     The 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         2o9 

animal  Conferences  were  often  held  at  or  near  the 
camps,  and  the  arrival  of  Aslmry,  sometimes  with 
M'Kendree  or  Whatcoat,  always  with  an  able  ''travel 
ing  companion/'  and  usually  with  a  retinue  of  other 
preachers  gathered  on  his  route,  became  a  sort  of 
spiritual  ovation,  a  triumphal  march  of  the  great  leader, 
which  put  in  motion  the  Methodist  hosts  all  along  his 
progress.  The  great  man  had  become  now  a  wonder  to 
the  nat  ion,  a  hoary  captain,  wich  such  a  prestige  as  no  other 
clergyman  of  the  western  hemisphere  could  claim.  He 
had  led  his  people  to  victory  in  all  the  land.  His  whole 
American  life  had  been  heroic,  and  now,  tottering  with 
years,  he  was  as  invincible  in  the  field  as  ever.  There 
was  no  faltering  in  his  course.  His  character  and  ex- 
ample were  a  marvelous  power.  The  people  felt  that  a 
cause  thus  providentially  conducted  could  not  fail,  but 
would  probably  take  the  whole  country.  The  itinerants 
especially  could  not  but  grow  strong  in  the  presence  ot 
such  a  man.  His  continual  passages  among  them  in- 
spirited them  to  emulate  his  wondrous  energy.  They 
almost  universally  took  a  chivalric  character,  a  military 
esprit  de  corpt  which  kept  them  compactly  united,  ex- 
ultant in  labor,  and  defiant  of  persecution  and  peril.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  Christian  world  ever  saw 
a  more  laborious,  more  powerful,  more  heroic,  or  more 
successful  band  of  evangelists  than  the  Methodist  itin- 
erants who  were  now  traversing  the  South  from  Chesa- 
peake Bay  to  the  Mexican  Gulf.  We  are  not  therefore 
surprised  that  their  communicants  numbered,  at  the 
close  of  these  years,  more  than  ninety  thousand; 
that  they  had  gained  rapidly,  not  only  through  the 
rural  districts,  but.  in  all  the  cities,  nearly  trebling  their 
numbers  in  Baltimore,  Dearly  doubling  them  in  Wash- 
ington,  more    than   doubling    them    in    Richmond    and 


240  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Charleston,  and  gathering  all  they  yet  had  in  Savannah. 
Baltimore  Conference  now  enrolled  33,289,  Virginia 
23,756,  South  Carolina  32,969. 

The  obituary  roll  of  the  South  for  this  period 
includes  many  names  which,  though  obscured  by 
time,  should  not  be  allowed  to  die.  Among  them  is 
that  of  Benjamin  Jones,  who,  in  1804,  fell  dead  in  a 
swamp  on  the  Waccamaw  Lake,  a  man  "  of  solemnity 
of  countenance  and  manners,  deeply  serious,  of  a  gentle 
mind,  and  Christian  spirit."  In  the  same  year  Nicholas 
Watters,  worthy  of  his  historic  family,  a  laborer  from 
Pennsylvania  to  Georgia,  "  a  man  of  courage,"  "  ready  in 
conversation,"  of  "gracious  temper"  and  "simple  man- 
ners," who  died  in  Charleston,  S.  C,  exclaiming,  "  I  am 
not  afraid  to  die,  thanks  be  to  God  !"  In  1805  John 
Durbin,  of  Maryland,  who  expired  shouting,  "  Jesus ! 
Jesus!  angels!  angels!  I'll  go."  In  1807  George 
Dougharty,  the  persecuted  hero,  whose  death  we  have 
heretofore  recorded.  The  same  year  Bennet  Keridrick, 
of  whom  the  Minutes  say,  "  What  pen  can  write  his 
worth?  Worthy  to  supply  the  place  of  Dougharty; 
but,  alas  !  we  are  deprived  of  them  both,  not  in  one  year 
only,  but  within  thirteen  days  of  each  other.  The  poor 
Africans  repeat  his  name,  and  speak  of  his  death  with 
tears.  He  was  a  willing  servant  to  slaves  for  the  sake 
of  Christ."  He  was  "  studious  and  skillful  in  the  word," 
and  "  ended  in  triumph."  The  next  year  Henry  Willis, 
who  has  been  often  noticed  as  one  of  the  greatest  men 
of  the  itinerancy,  an  evangelist  from  New  York  to 
Charleston  and  the  West,  and  who  died  in  Maryland, 
"  with  triumphant  faith  in  Christ."  Also  Edmund  Hen- 
ley, a  native  of  North  Carolina,  a  laborer  in  the  western 
mountains  and  southern  low  country.  Expecting  death, 
he  hastened  from  his  circuit  to  his  father's  house,  erected 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         241 

a  stand  at  the  graveyard,  preached  from  it  his  own 
funeral  sermon  to  his  old  neighbors  and  friends,  and 
was  soon  after  buried  there.  ''Several  years  he  pro- 
fessed sanctification  and  the  full  assurance  of  hope,"  and 
was  "  very  circumspect  in  his  walk."  The  ruling  pas- 
sion was  strong  with  him  in  death.  lie  became  deliri- 
ous, "but  would  shout  and  pray,  exhort  and  praise 
God  to  the  last."  The  same  year  Leonard  Cassell, 
of  German  parentage,  born  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Strawbridge's  Chapel,  on  Pipe  Creek,  the  Summerfield 
of  his  times;  of  "astonishing  genius,"  a  "happy  model 
of  pulpit  simplicity,  eloquence,  and  piety,  which  shone 
with  astonishing  luster."  The  "loss  of  no  young  man 
in  the  connection,"  say  his  brethren,  "could  be  more 
deservedly  lamented."  Like  Xicholas  Watters,  and 
many  other  itinerants,  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  epidemic 
yellow  fever,  which  he  bravely  confronted  at  his  last  post 
in  Baltimore,  and  died  "  with  unbroken  confidence  in 
God."  In  1809  the  veteran  Joseph  Everett,  in  Mary- 
land, shouting,  "Glory!  glory!  glory!"  In  1810 
Moses  Black,  of  South  Carolina,  who,  dying,  requested 
his  attendants  to  open  his  chamber  windows,  and,  look- 
ing out,  said,  "Behold,  how  beautiful  everything  looks; 
I  s-iall  soon  go  now,"  and  immediately  closed  his  eyes 
forever,  in  "great  peace  and  tranquillity."  In  1811 
Samuel  Mills,  "grave,"  "plain  in  dress  and  diet,  a  strict 
disciplinarian,  visiting  from  house  to  house,"  "  a  wit- 
ness of  sanctification,"  of  "strong  confidence  in  God, 
and  frequently  shouting  his  praise."  Also  Nathan 
Weedon,  of  Virginia,  a  man  of  "  peculiarities,"  of  great 
afflictions,  suffering  by  agonies  in  the  head,  and  at  last 
by  blindness,  but  persisting  in  his  labors  till  he  fell  de- 
claring, "I  am  not  afraid  to  die."  In  1812  Jesse  Pin 
nell,  of  Virginia,  "of  blameless  and  harmless  character," 


242  HISTORY    OF    THE 

dying  of  consumption,  he  testified,  as  long  as  "  he  could 
whisper,  that  he  was  happy,  happy."  Jacob  Rumph,  of 
South  Carolina,  "  abstemious,  steady,  studious ;"  a  strict 
"disciplinarian,"  "dead  to  the  world;"  "difficult  to  per- 
suade to  receive  any  pecuniary  aid  from  the  Church ;" 
distinguished  by  his  devotion  to  the  religious  welfare  of 
children,  with  whom  he  was  greatly  successful.  On  his 
last  sacramental  occasion  he  said  :  "  This  day  the  Lord 
hath  enabled  me  to  be  perfectly  willing  to  die  in  Charles- 
ton," where  he  soon  after  expired  with  "the  smiles  of 
peace  and  confidence  on  his  countenance."  Jesse  Brown, 
of  Virginia,  "  a  witness  of  perfect  love,"  and  "  praising 
God  while  he  had  breath."  In  1813  Leroy  Merritt,  also 
a  Virginian,  of  great  "  zeal  and  simplicity,  studious  and 
successful ;"  attacked  with  fever  on  his  circuit,  he  has- 
tened to  a  Methodist  family  in  Portsmouth,  Va.,  saying 
that  he  had  "  come  to  die  with  them ;"  they  took  him 
in,  ministered  to  him  to  the  last,  and  witnessed  his  tri- 
umphant departure,  as  he  exclaimed,  "I  have  gained 
the  victory !  Come,  Lord,  come  !  I  am  ready  to  go  ! 
Glory,  glory,  glory  !  Roll  on  eternity,  eternity  !  Roll 
on  ages,  ages,  ages  !  "  In  1815  Joel  Arrington,  a  North 
Carolinian,  who  died  "  with  strong  confidence  and  full 
assurance  of  the  promises."  Nathan  Lodge,  a  Virginian, 
a  man  of  great  purity  and  fidelity,  who  died  speechless, 
but  tranquil  and  safe.  Zecharia  Witten,  testifying,  "  I 
leave  the  world  without  trouble  or  sorrow."  In  1816 
Ewen  Johnson,  a  North  Carolinian,  a  faithful  and  useful 
laborer,  of  "  a  humble  and  timid  spirit,"  "  nevertheless 
persevering,  zealous,  studious,"  "wholly  given  up  to  the 
ministry ;"  he  lost  his  speech  before  death,  but  retained 
his  senses;  "he  arose,  fell  upon  his  knees,  clasped  his 
hands,"  and,  though  without  utterance,  appeared  to  be 
rapt   with   "  the   divine   presence."      James   Quail,   ol 


IfETHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH.         243 

Maryland,  "eminent  for  piety  and  diligence,"  and  dying 
"with  great  peace  of  mind."  In  1817  Samuel  Wag- 
goner, of  Xorth  Carolina,  who,  sinking  under  consump- 
tion, returned  to  his  fathers  house,  and  died  "in  full 
assurance  of  faith."  Peter  Wyatt,  of  Virginia,  who 
woru  out  by  labor  and  disease  at  Xorfolk,  died  on  a 
journey  for  health,  in  a  Methodist  family  of  Xansemond 
County,  where  he  had  found  himself  too  weak  to  pro- 
ceed further;  in  a  swoon  his  attendants  wept  around 
him,  supposing  him  to  be  dead;  but  he  revived,  and 
said,  "  Weep  not  for  me ;"  spoke  of  the  blessedness  of 
the  righteous,  and,  "  laying  his  hands  upon  his  breast, 
died  without  a  struggle."  William  Patridge,  of  Vir- 
ginia, who  died  in  Georgia,  exclaiming,  "for  me  to  die 
is  gain;'*  an  eminently  holy  man,  "who,"  say  the  old 
Minutes,  "respected  the  rights  of  man  with  a  nicety 
never  surpassed,"  and  "  though  surrounded  by  those 
who  held  slaves,  would  have  none."  Anthony  Senter, 
of  Xorth  Carolina,  "as  a  Christian,  without  offense," 
when  nearly  unable  to  speak,  by  consumption,  he 
still  traveled  from  circuit  to  circuit  as  presiding  elder, 
and  assembled  the  official  members  of  his  charge  to 
instruct  them  in  their  duties ;  unable  at  last  to  go  on, 
he  lay  down  and  died  in  the  full  peace  of  the  gospel. 
Henry  Padgett,  of  Maryland,  who  departed,  shout- 
ing, "O  death,  welcome  death!  Farewell.  I  bid  you 
all  farewell.  I  shall  not  be  dead,  but  living.  O  yefl  ; 
living  in  heaven!*'  In  1818  Fletcher  Harris,  of  Xorth 
Carolina,  a  young  man  of  eminent  promise  and  hollo 
who  died  "shouting  aloud  the  prai  :  I  -d."     A  few 

-  before  hifl  death,  being  supported  in  his  bed,  he 
preached  his  farewell  sermon  to  his  friends,  "shook 
hands  with  all  around,  bidding  them  an  affectionate 
larewell,"  and  then  said,  "Glory  to  God!  victory!  vic- 

4 


244  HISTORY    OF    THE, 

tory!  This  is  not  dying,  it  is  living  forever.  Tell 
the  preachers  at  Conference  that  I  died  in  the  triumphs 
of  faith ;  that  my  last  doctrine  is  free  salvation." 
Joseph  Stone,  an  Englishman,  who,  "in  the  midst  of 
excruciating  pains,  praised  the  Lord  aloud,  and  clapped 
his  hands,  exclaiming,  c  Glory  !  glory  !  glory  1 ' "  the 
last  words  he  was  heard  to  utter  distinctly.  In  1819 
Thomas  Lucas,  of  Maryland,  a  great  sufferer,  who  died 
in  peace.  John  Wesley  Bond,  of  Baltimore,  the  faith- 
ful traveling  companion  of  Asbury,  who  had  "great 
affliction  and  distress  of  mind  "  when  near  death ;  but 
"  the  conflict  soon  closed  in  peace  and  triumph." 
John  T.  Brame,  of  Virginia,  "thrust  sorely  at  by  the 
enemy  of  souls  "  on  his  deathbed,  being  delirious  with 
fever,  but  "  the  voice  of  prayer "  from  his  brethren 
"  never  failed  to  call  him  to  his  right  mind ;" .  at  last, 
while  some  of  them  were  on  their  knees  around  him, 
"  light  broke  into  his  soul,"  and  "  he  continued  in  ecstasy 
and  triumph  "  till  death.  George  Burnett,  of  Virginia, 
"in  full  assurance  of  a  blessed  immortality."  In  1820 
Charles  Dickinson,  of  North  Carolina,  a  humble  but 
useful  laborer,  who,  bidding  farewell  to  his  friends, 
said,  "  Surely  the  Lord  is  here  ! "  and,  "  without  a  groan 
or  a  sigh,  closed  his  own  eyes,  folded  his  hands,"  and 
died.  Also  Archibald  Robinson,  of  North  Carolina, 
who  expired  after  a  sickness  iu  which  "he  was  so  filled 
with  divine  love,  that  his  cup  ran  over,  and  he  continued 
praising  God  till  his  strength  was  almost  exhausted." 
And  thus,  after  triumphant  lives  and  labors,  these  good 
men  had  triumphant  deaths. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         24; 


CHAPTER  IT. 

METHODISM    IX  THE   MIDDLE  AND   NORTHERN  STATES, 
1804-1820. 

Condition  of  the  Church  —  Camp-meetings  —  John  Emory  —  He  for- 
sakes the  Bar  for  the  Pulpit  —  Emory's  further  Career  and  Character 
—  Jacob  Gruber  tried  for  opposing  Slavery  —  Garrettson  and  Ware  — 
Marvin  Richardson— A  Camp-meeting  —  Nathan  Bangs  —  Heman 
Bangs  —  Robert  Seney  —  Samuel  Luckey  —  Origin  of  the  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church — Richard  Allen  becomes  a  Bishop  — 
Zion  African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  —  Methodism  up  the  Hud- 
son—  In  Troy  —  Noah  Levings  "Exhorting" — Albany  —  Schenec- 
tady—  Ministerial  Reinforcements. 

Tfie  maturer  fields  of  the  Church,  in  the  middle  and 
northern  states,  had  almost  continual  prosperity  during 
the  present  period.  It  was  a  time  of  church  building, 
in  which  the  primitive  temporary  structures  began  to 
give  place  to  more  commodious  but  hardly  more  pre- 
tentious edifices ;  of  local  growth,  in  membership  and 
influence,  and  of  rapid  and  important  accessions  to  the 
ministry.  But  these  sections  had  not  much  frontier 
work,  except  in  Western  New  York  and  Canada,  and, 
therefore,  fewer  of  those  salient  events,  which  still 
marked  the  progress  of  the  denomination  in  the  South 
and  West,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  yet  reluctant 
states  of  Xew  England,  Their  published  records  con- 
tinue to  be  singularly  scanty  in  historical  data.  Men 
now  entered  the  Itinerancy,  whose  names  are  familiar 
through  the  whole  Church,  but  who  are  known  only 
by  vague  traditions  of  their  pulpit  eloquence  and  great 


246  HISTORY    OF    THE 

usefulnesSj  and  the  meager  allusions  or  brief  obituaries 
of  the  Conference  Minutes.1 

Beginning  the  period  with  forty  thousand  four  hundred 
and  fifteen  members,  the  two  Conferences  of  this  region 
ended  it  with  three  Conferences  and  eighty-two  thousand 
two  hundred  and  fifty-four  members.  They  had  more 
than  doubled  their  numerical  strength.  In  1810  they 
detached  a  large  and  thriving  portion  of  their  territory, 
and  formed  of  it  the  Genesee  Conference,  under  which 
has  grown  up  the  flourishing  Methodism  of  interior  and 
Western  New  York.  Steady  progress  was  made  in  the 
principal  cities.  Philadelphia  nearly  doubled  its  com- 
municants, notwithstanding  it  lost  some  thirteen  hund- 
red by  the  secession  of  its  colored  members  under 
Richard  Allen.  New  York  more  than  trebled  its  mem- 
bers, though  it  also  lost  nearly  a  thousand  by  a  similar 
African  schism  in  1819,  and  three  hundred  more  thcnext 
year  by  a  secession  of  whites  under  William  M.  Still- 
well,  the  founder  of  the  "  Stillwellites,"  a  faction  which 
has  utterly  dwindled  away.  Great  revivals  had  pre- 
vailed there,  especially  in  1808  and  1809,  adding  nearly 
six  hundred  members  in  the  two  years,  so  that  in  1810 
two  new  churches  were  erected,  those  of  Allen  and  Bed- 
ford streets,  both  of  which  became  fountain-heads  of  Meth- 
odism for  the  whole  city.  John-street  was  also  rebuilt 
before  the  period  closed,  (in  1817,  and  rededicated  Jan- 
uary 4, 1818 ;)  its  old  timbers  were  used  in  the  construc- 
tion of  another  church,  at  the  "  Two-Mile  Stone,"  from 
which  sprung  Seventh-street  Church.  The  other  chief 
cities  were  still  mostly  heads  of  circuits,  and  have  not 
distinct  enough  returns  in  the  Minutes  for  the  estimation 

i  Bangs,  though  his  narrative  is  in  the  form  of  Annals,  could  give 
hardly  a  half  score  strictly  local  facts  of  the  middle  states  for  all  these 
years. 


METHODIST    K  P  I  S  C  0  P  A  L    C  II  U  B  C  IT.         247 

of  their  progress,  but  their  circuits  show  generally  large 
gains.  It  was  a  time  of  almost  universal  revivals,  and 
especially  of  successful  camp  meetings ;  checked  some- 
what by  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  bur  only  temporar- 
ily, for  the  energy  of  Methodism  bad  cow  become  irre- 
pressible. Asbury,  in  the  summer  of  1807,  wrote:  "I 
have  good  reasons  to  believe  that  upon  the  Eastern 
Shore  four  thousand  have  been  converted  since  the  first 
<>\'  May,  and  one  thousand  sanctified,  besides  >ouls  con- 
victed and  quickened  and  restored.  Our  Pentecost  for 
sanctification  is  fully  come  in  some  places.  Ten  camp- 
meetings  north  of  Xew  York  in  about  two  months,  and 
more  laid  out.  Xow,  I  think,  we  congregate  two  mill- 
ions in  a  year,  and  I  hope  for  one  hundred  thousand  souls 
converted,  convicted,  restored,  or  sanctified.  The  whole 
continent  is  awake.  I  am  on  a  route  of  three  thousand 
miles  from  and  to  Baltimore.  Such  a  work  of  God,  I 
believe,  never  was  known  for  the  number  of  people." 

Among  the  eminent  men  who  entered  the  ministry  in 
this  period  none  attained  a  more  important  historical 
position  in  the  middle  states  thau  John  Emory,  born  in 
Queen  Anne  County,  Md.,  1789.  His  parents  were 
Methodists,  and  belonged  to  the  best  class  of  the  com- 
munity. They  trained  him  strictly  in  their  faith,  and 
from  his  childhood  he  maintained  an  unsullied  char- 
acter. In  his  seventeenth  year  he  joined  the  Church,  a 
consecrated  youth.  He  was  ela-sically  educated,  and 
early  devoted  himself  to  the  profession  of  the  law.  At 
the  time  he  abandoned  it-  ambitious  hopes  of  wealth 
and  honor  for  the  Methodist  itinerancy  hardly  any 
young  man  in  his  native  Btate  had  more  flattering  pros- 
pects. An  inflexible  will,  the  most  assiduous  habits  "t 
study  and  application,  thorough  manliness  and  upright- 
ness, remarkable  self-possession,  clearness,  and  compre- 


248  HISTORY    OF    THE 

bensiveness  of  mind,  readiness  of  speech,  in  a  style  ol 
equal  perspicuity  and  vigor,  and  an  extraordinary  logi- 
cal faculty,  marked  him  as  a  man  to  whom  success  was 
beyond  any  other  hazard  than  that  of  life  itself.  lie 
was  not  eligible  to  the  bar,  according  to  usage,  till  his 
majority,  but  was  admitted  two  years  earlier,  and  soon 
had,  says  one  of  his  legal  contemporaries,  "  every  pros- 
pect of  wealth  and  fame"2  by  a  successful  practice. 
"  Had  he  continued,"  says  another  of  his  legal  colleagues, 
"he  would  have  attained  a  most  conspicuous  eminence." 
In  these  times,  more  than  in  ours,  the  law  was  the 
highway  to  political  distinction,  and  John  Emory  could 
have  hopefully  aimed  at  the  highest  places  of  public 
power  and  fame,  but  his  luminous  mind  saw  the  supe- 
rior honor  of  an  apostolic  life  of  labor  and  suffering,  and 
the  "glory  which  shall  follow."  He  turned  away  from 
his  professional  prospects.  The  self-denial  cost  him  a 
fearful  struggle.  He  lost  his  religious  comfort  before 
he  yielded;  but  in  1809  he  made  a  "  covenant,"  wrote 
and  signed  it,  to  give  up  the  law  and  preach  the  gospel. 
"  The  moment,"  he  says,  "  I  entered  into  this  covenant 
on  my  knees,  I  felt  my  mind  relieved,  and  the  peace  and 
love  of  God  flow  through  my  soul,  and  ever  since  I 
have  enjoyed  closer  communion  with  him  than  ever 
before."  His  father,  though  a  pious  man,  persistently 
opposed  his  resolution,  refused  him  a  horse  with  which 
iu  begin  his  itinerant  career,  and  refused  for  two  years 
to  hear  him  preach,  or  to  receive  letters  from  him. 
Borrowing  a  horse  from  a  friend,  he  went  forth,  how- 
ever, and  traveled,  "  under  the  presiding  elder,"  till  the 
session  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference  in  1810,  when  he 
was  received  into  its  membership,  and  sent  to  Caroline 

2  Life  of  Rev.  John  Emory,  D.  D.    By  his  eldest  son,  p.  43.    New 
York,  1841. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  249 

Circuit,  on  the  Eastern  Shore  of  Maryland.  His  father 
at  last  became  reconciled  to  his  course,  encouraged  his 
labors,  and,  when  dying,  sent  for  him  to  attend  and 
console  his  last  hours. 

From  1810  to  1813  young  Emory  rode  circuits,  but 
never  afterward.  He  was  ready  for  the  hardest  serv- 
ice;  and  when  Asbury,  in  1812,  called  for  volunteers 
I'm  Canada,  he  offered  himself  for  that  difficult 
field,  as  also  for  the  West.  But  his  peculiar  talents 
fitted  him  for  other  work.  In  1813  he  was  appointed 
to  the  Academy  (Union)  Station  in  Philadelphia. 

In  1815  he  was  appointed  to  Wilmington,  Del.  ;  in 
1816,  reappointed  to  Union  Church  in  Philadelphia,  and 
the  same  year  was  elected  a  delegate  to  the  General  Con- 
ference. It  was  the  first  session  to  which  he  was  eligi 
blc,  and  there  was  no  subsequent  session  during  his  life 
in  which  he  was  not  a  delegate,  except  that  of  1824, 
when,  being  in  the  minority  in  his  Conference  on  a  dis- 
puted question,  he  was  not  elected.  In  181V  he  first 
appeared  as  an  author  by  "  A  Reply  "  to  an  essay  of 
Bishop  White,  entitled  "  Objections  against  the  Position 
of  a  Personal  Assurance  of  the  Pardon  of  Sin  by  a  direct 
Communication  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  The  doctrine 
assailed  is  vital  in  Methodist  theology,  and  Emory  de- 
fended it  with  an  ability  which  fully  disclosed  his  ca- 
pacity for  the  future  literary  service  of  the  Church.  He 
wrote  a  "Further  Reply."  The  two  pamphlets  were 
noticed  by  White  in  a  review  of  the  whole  question, 
with  which  the  controversy  closed.  In  1818  he  was 
stationed  in  Washington  city,  where  also  he  issued,  in 
a  local  controversy,  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  The  Divinity 
of  Christ  Vindicated,'1  etc.  In  1820  he  was  sent  afl 
representative  of  hifl  Church  to  the  British  Conference; 
in  1824  appointed   Book   Agent,  with  Nathan  Rmu_t-  ; 


250  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  m  1832  elected  bishop,  positions  which  identify 
him  with  important  questions  and  advancements  of 
the  Church.  In  them  all  he  showed  the  qualities 
of  an  extraordinary  man,  down  to  his  sudden  death 
in  1835,  when  he  was  found,  bleeding  and  insensible, 
on  the  highway,  having  been  thrown  out  of  his 
carriage  on  his  route  from  his  home  to  Baltimore. 
He  died  the  same  day  without  the  restoration  of  his 
consciousness. 

In  person  he  was  below  the  ordinary  size,  slight,  not 
weighing  over  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds, 
but  well  proportioned,  and  erect.  His  features  were 
expressive  of  tranquil  thoughtfulness,  firmness,  and  kindli- 
ness. He  was  long  a  sufferer  from  gastric  ailments,  but 
was  a  persevering  worker,  a  thorough  student,  an  early 
riser,  and  rigorously  systematic.  Down  to  his  day  the 
Church  had  not  possessed  a  more  scholarly,  a  better 
trained,  intellect.  He  was  pre-eminent  as  a  debater  in 
Conferences,  especially  in  the  General  Conference,  and 
his  legal  skill  solved  for  it  some  of  its  most  difficult 
legislative  problems.  Withal  he  was  remarkably  ver- 
satile, and  successful  in  all  that  he  attempted.  His 
writings  in  defense  of  his  denomination,  both  its 
theology  and  polity,  were  always  authoritative  and 
conclusive.  His  piety  was  profound,  steady,  yet 
fervent.  He  saw  in  his  own  Church  the  mightiest 
system  of  agencies  for  the  evangelization,  not  only 
of  the  new  world,  but  of  the  whole  world,  that 
Christendom  afforded,  and  he  consecrated  himself 
entirely  to  the  development  and  application  of  its 
forces. 

Jacob  Gruber's  labors  in  this  period  down  to  1814 
were  beyond  the  western  mountains,  but  after  one  year 
more,  spent  in  Baltimore,  he  had  charge  of  the  Carlisle 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        251 

District,  P<  an.,  which  reached  into  Maryland.  In  the 
latter  state  he  held  a  camp-meeting  in  1818,  at  which 
he  preached  before  three  thousand  hearers  against 
slavery,  no  very  uncommon  thing  among  the  leaders 
of  the  early  itinerancy ;  but  a  warrant  was  issued, 
and  he  was  arrested  at  one  of  his  quarterly  meet- 
ings. The  grand  jury,  at  Hagerstown,  Md.,  pro- 
duced an  indictment  against  him,  and  in  1819  he  was 
solemnly  tried  for  felony  in  the  Frederick  County 
Court.3  The  case  produced  general  excitement,  espe 
ciallv  anions  the  Methodists,  now  eminently  influential 
in  the  state.  Many  of  his  chief  ministerial  brethren, 
especially  Roszell  and  Snethen,  zealously  sustained  him. 
Ignatius  Pigman,  once  an  itinerant,  now  an  eloquent 
lawyer,  and  local  preacher ;  Roger  B.  Taney,  afterward 
chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
and  two  other  lawyers,  were  employed  to  defend  him. 
Hon.  J.  Buchanan,  chief  judge,  Hon.  A.  Shriver,  and  Hon. 
T.  Buchanan,  associate  judges,  composed  the  court.  The 
trial  proceeded  with  intense  public  interest.  Roger  B. 
Taney's  addresses  were  eloquent  and  conclusive.  He 
justly  affirmed  that  the  Methodist  Church  "has  steadily 
in  view  the  abolition  of  slavery;"  that  "no  slaveholder 
is  allowed  to  be  a  minister  in  it;"  that  its  "preachers 
are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  injustice  and  oppression 
of  slavery ;"  that  "  nobody  could  doubt  the  opinion  of 
Gruber  on  the  subject;*'  and  he  "fully  vindicated  Gru- 
ber  and  his  Church  in  this  opinion  and  policy."  "Slav- 
ery," continued  the  distinguished  lawyer,  "is  a  blot  on 
our  national  character,  and  every  real  lover  of  freedom 
confidently  hopes  that  it  will  be  effectually,  though  it 
most  be  gradually,  wiped  away,  and  earnestly  looks  for 
the  means  by  which  this  necessary  object  may  be  best 

■  Strickland  reports  the  case  quite  fully.     "  Life  of  Gruber,"  p.  130 

D     17  a 


252  HISTORY    OF    THE 

attained.  And  until  it  shall  be  accomplished,  until  the 
time  shall  come  when  we  can  point  without  a  blush  to 
the  language  held  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
every  friend  of  humanity  will  seek  to  lighten  the  galling 
chain  of  slavery,  and  better,  to  the  utmost  of  his  power, 
the  wretched  condition  of  the  slave."  Citizens  of  *he 
United  States  had  occasion,  in  later  years,  to  recall  these 
utterances  when  the  speaker  sat  on  the  supreme  bench 
of  the  nation.  The  jury,  after  a  few  minutes'  rei  irement, 
pronounced  a  verdict  of  "  not  guilty."  Gruber,  hearing 
that  the  "trial"  was  to  be  published  in  a  pamphlet, 
addressed  a  letter  to  its  editor  for  publication  with  it, 
arguing  the  subject  bravely,  and  at  considerable  length. 
"  Some,"  he  wrote,  "  have  been  in  hopes  that  I  have 
learned  a  useful  lesson  in  my  trial ;  but  whatever  I  have 
learned,  I  can  assure  you  I  have  not  yet  learned  to  call 
good  evil,  or  evil  good.  I  hope  while  I  keep  my  senses 
I  shall  consider  involuntary  perpetual  slavery  miserable 
injustice,  a  system  of  robbery  and  theft.  I  hope  I  never 
shall  rank  men,  women,  and  children  with  horses  and 
cows  and  property,  and  countenance  or  justify  such 
sales  and  merchandise.  May  our  merciful  God  save  us 
from  this  sin  and  reproach,  and  let  every  honest  man 
say  amen."  This  was  well  said  in  the  circumstances, 
but  it  was  nothing  extraordinary  for  a  Methodist 
preacher  of  that  day  to  say  it.  He  went  forthwith  to 
the  session  of  his  Conference  at  Alexandria,  D.  C,  and 
was  appointed  for  the  ensuing  year  to  Frederick  Cir- 
cuit, named  after,  and  comprehending,  the  town  in 
which  he  had  been  tried. 

Freeborn  Garrettson  labored  strenuously  in  all  this 
period  in  the  middle  states,  mostly  on  the  Hudson,  in 
stations  from  New  York  city  to  Rhinebeck,  but  much 
of  the  time  as  Conference  missionary,  an  appointment 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    OHURCH.         253 

which  allowed  him  to  circulate  at  large  among  the 
Churches.  His  venerable  character,  as  a  founder  of  the 
denomination,  made  him  everywhere  welcome,  and  his 
power  and  unction  as  a  preacher  revivified  the  societies 
irenerallv.  During  some  of  these  vears  he  acrain  com- 
manded  the  large  Xew  York  District,  leading  a  host  oi 
the  ablest  men  of  the  northern  mini-try.  Toward  ihe 
close  of  the  period  he  was  among  the  supernumeraries, 
but  with  hardly  diminished  labors. 

Thomas  Ware,  worn  by  protracted  labors  in  the 
hardest  fields  of  the  Church,  continued  to  travel  down 
to  1809,  part  of  the  time  in  Xew  Jersey  District,  (com- 
prehending the  whole  state,)  and  part  in  Philadel- 
phia, where  his  health  failed,  and  compelled  him  to 
retire  till  1811,  when  he  was  again  at  work  at  Lancas 
ter,  till  the  General  Conference  of  1812  appointed  him 
to  the  Book  Concern,  where,  during  four  years,  he  did 
valuable  service  for  the  publishing  interests  of  the 
Church.  From  1816  to  1825  he  was  again  abroad  as  an 
itinerant,  but  in  the  latter  year  was  compelled  by  age 
to  retreat  into  the  "  ineffective  ranks,"  after  forty  years 
of  service  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  country  accessible 
in  his  times. 

Marvin    Richardson,   born   in    Stephentown,   X.  \  , 

1789,  was  awakened   at   the  old  Sand— treet  Church, 

Brooklyn,  in  1805,  and,  in  the  next  year,  converted  at  a 

camp-meeting  held  at  Tuckahoe,  Westchester  County 

William   Thatcher    presided    over  this   gathering,   and 

\-''iiry    and    a    host    of   preachers    were    present.       It 

an   extraordinary   occasion.      Asbury  said   that  it 

exceeded    any    camp-meeting    he    had    ever    attended. 

"From  it,"  write-  Richardson,  "revival-  spread  east, 

-\  north,  and  sonth;   the  Spirit   of  the   Lord   was 

poured  out   upon   tin.-  city  of  New  Fork  in   an    unusual 


254  HISTORY    OF    THE 

manner.  Under  the  faithful  labors  of  Aaron  Hunt, 
Trueman  Bishop,  Seth  Crowell,  Freeborn  Garrettson, 
and  John  Wilson,  many  were  led  to  Christ,  and  among 
the  number,  to  my  great  joy,  our  whole  family,  consist- 
ing of  father,  mother,  three  brothers,  and  three  sisters, 
found  peace  with  God,  and  connected  themselves  with 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  Brooklyn  also,  where 
were  stationed  Ezekiel  Cooper  and  Samuel  Thomas, 
shared  largely  in  the  refreshing  from  the  presence  of 
the  Lord.  Many  were  added  to  the  Church,  and.  out 
of  the  number  two  became  preachers,  namely,  Josiah 
Bowen  and  myself.  These  were  indeed  happy  and 
joyous  days,  sweetened  as  they  were  by  the  delights 
of  Christian  fellowship.  We  were  truly  of  one  heart 
and  of  one  mind."  4 

In  1808  Ostrander  announced  him  to  preach  in  Brook- 
lyn without  his  knowledge.  With  great  diffidence  and 
agitation  he  thus  began,  when  but  nineteen  years  old, 
his  long  and  successful  itinerant  life.  The  same  year 
he  was  called  out  by  his  presiding  elder  to  the  Croton 
Circuit.  Thomas  Thorp,  later  a  useful  preacher,  was 
one  of  the  fruits  of  his  first  sermon  on  this  circuit ;  yet 
such  was  the  self  distrust  of  the  young  evangelist,  that 
he  determined  to  give  up  preaching,  and  return  home, 
when  Woolsey  met  him,  and  by  urgent  and  fatherly 
admonitions  forced  him  back  to  the  circuit.  A  second 
time  he  attempted  to  retreat,  but  his  colleague,  Isaac 
Candee,  met  him  on  his  homeward  route,  and  again 
turned  him  back.  He  was  received  into  the  Conference 
in  1809,  and  sent  three  hundred  miles  to  Charlotte 
Circuit  in  Vermont,  along  the  shores  of  Lake  Cham- 
plain.  He  went  to  it  on  horseback,  carrying  his  cloth- 
ing and  books,  all  that  he  possessed,  in  his  portmanteau. 
*  MS.  autobiography. 


METHODIST    KIM  SCO  PAL    CHURCH.  25b 

lie  had  formidable  labors  on  liis  circuit,  but  was  sus- 
tained by  a  "powerful  revival  in  Middlebtuy,  Vt.," 
which  so  strengthened  the  Church  there  as  to  enable  it 
to  become  a  "station."  Two  hundred  souls  were  added 
to  the  membership  of  the  circuit. 

During  the  remainder  of  these  years  he  was  appointed 
to  Granville,  Mass.,  Buckland,  Mass.,  Dutchess,  X.  T., 
Xew  Haven,  Conn.,  X e\v  York  city,  Jamaica,  L.  I.,  Mid- 
dletown,  Conn.,  New  Rochelle,  X.  Y.  On  some  of  his 
circuits  he  suffered  severely,  receiving  but  little  salary, 
sometimes  hardly  enough  to  buy  clothing  for  the  year, 
having  poor  fare,  impaired  health,  and  terrible  exposures 
in  winter,  with  "face,  hands,  and  feet  frozen;"  but  he 
was  faithful  to  his  charge,  and,  as  his  future  appoint- 
ments will  show,  became  one  of  the  representative  men 
of  the  Xew  York  Conference.  He  was  called  the 
"  finest  looking "  member  of  that  body  —  in  person 
well-proportioned  and  dignified,  with  an  expressive 
face,  simple  but  most  courteous  manners,  of  few  words, 
extreme  modesty,  great  prudence  in  counsel,  and  a  tran- 
quil uniformity  of  temper  and  life— the  perfect  Christian 
gentleman,  and  unblemished  Christian  minister.  "The 
oldest  member  of  the  Xew  York  Conference,"  says  one 
of  his  brethren,  "  he  has  attended  fifty-eight  of  its  an- 
nual sessions,  having  never  failed  of  one  of  them,  and 
being  forty-two  years  '  effective.'  For  the  last  sixteen 
years  he  has  been  superannuated.  He  is  now  seventy- 
eight  years  old,  but  is  still  remarkable  for  his  noble 
personal  appearance,  agreeable  manners,  sweetness  of 
spirit,  and  firmness  of  character.  He  has  held  a  place 
in  the  front  rank  of  his  Conference,  and  in  the  regards 
of  the  people."  6 

»  Letter  of  Rev.  Jobn  Campbell,  of  New  York  Conference,  to  the 
author.     18C7. 


256  HISTORY    OF    THE 

In  1808  Nathan  Bangs  returned  from  Canada,  and 
was  appointed  to  Delaware  Circuit,  X.  Y.,  where,  among 
many  other  fruitful  incidents  of  his  ministry,  was  the 
reception  into  the  Church  of  his  brother,  Heman  Bangs, 
whose  faithful  and  vigorous  services  in  the  itinerancy 
have  continued  to  our  own  day.  "  He  was  esteemed," 
writes  the  latter,  "  a  powerful  preacher.  I  remember 
that  at  a  quarterly  meeting,  after  the  presiding  elder 
had  preached,  he  rose  and  began  to  exhort.  In  a  few 
minutes  the  power  of  his  word  was  like  an  electrical 
shock,  and  the  whole  assembly  rose  simultaneously  to 
their  feet.  He  had  a  notion  that  it  was  my  duty  to 
preach,  and  wrote  me  a  long  letter  about  it,  especially 
cautioning  me  not  to  marry,  as  that  would  interfere 
with  the  itinerant  work.  I  was  fearful  myself  that  I 
should  have  to  preach,  but  determined  not  to  do  so  if  I 
could  avoid  it,  and  yet  save  my  soul.  I  was  willing  to 
be  a  local  preacher,  but  not  an  itinerant.  I  drew  the 
inference  from  his  letter  that  a  wife  would  be  a  sure 
barrier  to  the  traveling  ministry,  so  1  determined  to 
marry  as  soon  as  I  could,  and  did  take  a  wife  three 
months  after  I  was  twenty-one  years  old.  His  letter  so 
vexed  me  that  I  would  not  read  it  a  second  time  for  a 
long  while,  and  yet  I  thought  so  much  of  it  that  I  kept 
it  for  fifty  years,  but  it  is  now  mislaid.  Nathan  and 
myself  have  ever  lived  in  sweet  fellowship.  Independ- 
ent in  our  own  opinions,  we  often  differed,  but  never 
quarreled.  He  afforded  me  many  profitable  reflections 
by  judicious  criticisms  when  I  was  young  in  the  min- 
istry." Heman  Bangs  joined  the  Conference  in  1815, 
and  became  one  of  its  strongest  men.  Tall,  robust,  of 
powerful  voice,  and  more  powerful  brain,  an  incessant 
preacher,  aud  able  disciplinarian,  assiduously  devoted 
uot  only  to  the  perfunctory  labors  of  the  ministry,  but 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        257 

to  all  the  philanthropic  undertakings  of  the  Church;  a 
man  of  fervent  zeal,  of  great  practical  sense,  of  good 
humor,  and  no  little  adroitness,  he  has  been  one  of  the 
most  successful  Methodist  preachers  of  the  last  half 
century. 

Nathan  Bangs  occupied  important  posts  during  these 
years :  Albany  Circuit,  New  York  city,  and  Rhine- 
beck  and  New  York  Districts.  His  pen  was  busy  in 
publications  in  defense  of  Methodism,  and,  with  Emory, 
he  was  now  beginning  the  literature  of  American 
Methodism.  He  was  greatly  useful  in  Xew  York  city 
from  1810  to  1812.  Methodism  had  one  circuit  in  the 
city,  with  but  little  more  than  two  thousand  mem- 
bers,  when  he  began  there.  A  profound  religious  in- 
terest prevailed  during  both  years  of  his  appointment. 
More  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  members  were  added 
to  the  Church  by  the  close  of*  the  first,  and  nearly  one 
hundred  and  fifty  more  by  the  close  of  the  second.  On 
the  Rhinebeck  District  he  had  almo>t  continual  revivals. 
His  quarterly  meetings  were  especially  effective,  assem- 
bling great  hosts  of  Methodists  and  their  neighbor 
from  all  the  country  around,  and  sending  out  quicken- 
ing influences  over  the  circuits.  He  begun  that  liberal 
provision  of  Churches  and  parsonages  which  has  dotted 
the  whole  region  of  the  old  Rhinebeck  District  with 
Methodist  edifices;  a  chapel  and  a  preacher's  house  in 
almost  every  village.  He  reformed  the  finances  of  the 
circuit-,  insisting  on  a  better  Bupport  of  the  ministry. 
By  tin-  end  of  hi-  four  years  on  the  district  its  nine 
appointment-  had  increased  to  thirteen,  its  nineteen 
preachers  to  twenty-five,  and  it  had  gained  nearh  a 
thou-and  members.  Besides  this  numerical  success, 
Dearly  all  its  economical  interests  had  improved; 
chapel-  and  parsonages  were  Bpringing  up  all  over  it* 


258  HISTORY    OF    THE 

territory.  Methodism  had,  in  fine,  secured  in  this 
extensive  region  not  only  a  lodgment,  but  a  strength 
which  no  subsequent  adversities  have  been  able  to 
shake.  The  district  has  since  received  the  title  of  "  the 
garden  of  Methodism."  "  In  all  that  region  of  country," 
writes  one  of  his  preachers,6  "  no  one  stood  higher  in 
public  esteem.  Quarterly  meetings  were  great  occa- 
sions, calling  out  vast  multitudes,  many  of  them  from 
a  distance  of  thirty  or  forty  miles.  No  church  edifice 
would  begin  to  accommodate  the  crowds  of  people,  and 
in  the  summer  season  an  orchard  or  grove  frequently 
served  as  our  temple  of  worship,  and  mighty  displays 
of  awakening  and  saving  power  were  often  witnessed 
under  the  fervid  and  heart-searching  preaching  of  our 
presiding  elder." 

He  led  many  a  useful  laborer  into  the  ministry  during 
his  presiding  eldership  in  these  years,  some  of  wljom 
were  to  take  historical  rank  in  the  Church,  though  at  a 
date  too  late  for  present  notice.  It  was  toward  the 
close  of  this  period  that  he  called  out  Robert  Seney,  his 
lifelong,  and  perhaps  his  dearest  friend,  one  of  the  first 
three  graduates  of  college  in  the  ministry,  a  man  who 
sacrificed  the  profession  of  the  law  and  high  social  rank 
for  the  heroism  of  the  itinerancy,  which  he  maintained 
for  more  than  thirty  years ;  "  an  excellent  general 
scholar,"  writes  Bangs,  "  a  well-read  theologian,"  a 
successful  preacher  in  the  most  important  appointments 
of  New  York  Conference,  a  staunch  friend,  a  perfect 
Christian  gentleman ;  of  extraordinary  memory,  intui- 
tive discernment  of  character,  rare  humor  a  ad  profound 
modesty.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  Bangs's  useful- 
ness  during   these   years   was,  in   any   other   respect, 

« Rev.  Dr.  Fitch  Reed,  who  began  his  ministry  on  this  district  in 
1815. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  259 

greater  than  in  his  success  in  recruiting  the  ministry 
with  similar  men. 

In  1810  Samuel  Luckey,  then  in  his  twentieth  year, 
was  called  out  by  Henry  Stead,  his  presiding  elder,  to 
supply  a  vacancy  on  Montgomery  Circuit,  N.  Y.,  which 
comprised  between  thirty  and  forty  appointments  in 
schoolhouses,  barns,  cottages,  and  workshops,  requiring 
about  three  hundred  miles  ride  in  four  weeks,  and  almost 
daily  preaching.  In  1811  he  was  received  by  the  New 
York  Conference,  and  sent  to  Ottawa,  in  Canada.  He 
made  his  way  as  best  he  could  to  Montreal,  and  thence 
fifty  or  sixty  miles,  through  the  French  settlements,  to 
his  circuit.  He  was  thus,  in  the  very  outset,  thrown 
upon  the  heroic  tests  of  the  early  itinerancy.  He  car- 
ried with  him  a  few  text-books  in  theology,  and  in 
the  Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  there,  in  the 
wilds  of  the  far  North,  began  that  course  of  faithful 
public  service,  which  has  identified  his  name  with  the 
history  of  the  Church  for  more  than  half  a  century.  As 
circuit  preacher,  presiding  elder,  principal  of  Genesee 
Wesleyan  Seminary,  at  Lima.,  N.  Y.,  from  1832  to 
1836;  editor  of  the  Book  Concern  from  1836  to  1840, 
regent  of  the  State  University  of  New  York  for  many 
years,  chaplain  to  the  charitable  institutions  of  Roches- 
ter, where  he  still  survives,  and  preaches  thrice  every 
Sunday,  he  has  done  an  amount  of  public  labor  hardly 
surpassed  by  any  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  ministry. 
Self  educated,  beyond  the  average  culture  of  his  early 
ministerial  associates,  steadfastly  devoted  to  his  work, 
of  vigorous  health  even  in  old  age,  a  successful  preacher, 
a  participant  in  many  General  Conferences,  and  in  almost 
every  enterprise  of  his  Church,  he  has  contributed  greatly 
to  its  prosperity,  not  only  in  the  state  of  New  York,  but 
throughout  the  country. 


260  HISTORY    OF    THE 

While  Dr.  Emory  was  in  charge  of  the  Union 
Station,  Philadelphia,  in  1814,  he  had  a  reluctant 
agency  in  the  events  which  gave  rise  to  the  African 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  An  unchristian  public 
opinion  had  always  repelled  and  oppressed  the  free 
men  of  color,  North  as  well  as  South.  With  all  its 
devotion  to  their  religious  welfare,  Methodism  had 
not  dared  to  fully  recognize  their  Christian  parity  in 
its  congregations,  and  thousands  of  its  African  mem- 
bers,  gradually  advancing  under  its  care  in  intellectual 
and  moral  improvement,  justly  felt  the  disabling  and 
humiliating  disparagement.  As  early  as  1787  some  of 
them,  in  Philadelphia,  convened  to  consider  their  griev- 
ances. Withdrawing  from  the  Church,  they  undertook 
to  build  a  chapel  for  themselves,  and  Bishop  White,  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  ordained  a  colored 
preacher  for  them.  Richard  Allen,  once  a  southern 
slave,  but  self-redeemed,  had  become  wealthy,  and  in- 
fluential among  his  people  in  Philadelphia,  and,  in  1793, 
erected  for  them  a  church  on  his  own  land,  which  was 
dedicated  by  Asbury,  and  named  Bethel.  In  1799  Allen 
was  ordained  a  deacon,  as  we  have  noticed,  and  in  1800 
the  General  Conference  made  provision  for  the  ordina- 
tion of  colored  men  in  similar  cases.  Allen  and  his 
brethren  had  entered  in  1796  into  an  engagement,  by  a 
"  charter,"  to  remain  under  the  disciplinary  regulations 
of  the  Church,  and  the  jurisdiction  of  a  white  elder,  ap- 
pointed in  the  Philadelphia  Conference ;  but  contentions 
soon  arose  respecting  their  relations  to  the  Conference ; 
an  appeal  was  made  to  the  law,  and  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Pennsylvania  responded  in  favor  of  the  Bethel  Society. 
They  thus  became  independent.  Emory  in  1814  ad- 
dressed to  them  a  circular  letter,  announcing  that  the 
white   preachers    could   no   longer    maintain   pastoral 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCIF.  261 

responsibility  for  them.7  They  called  a  general  con- 
vention of  colored  Methodists  in  April,  1816,  to  organ- 
ize a  denomination  ;  and  'Making  into  consideration  their 
grievances,  and  in  older  to  secure  their  privileges  and 
promote  union  among  themselves,  it  was  resolved  that 
the  people  of  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  all  other 
places,  who  should  unite  with  them,  should  become  one 
body  under  the  name  and  style  of  the  'African  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church.' "  Thus  arose  the  most  im- 
portant Protestant  body  of  Africans  in  the  United 
States,  or  indeed  in  the  world.  Later  events  in  our 
national  history  indicate  that  if  was  a  providential  pro- 
vision, and  it  depends  only  on  its  leading  minds,  under 
God,  to  secure  to  it  a  sublime  mission  and  destiny 
among  the  liberated  African  population  of  the  nation. 
It  adopted  substantially  the  Discipline  and  Doctrines  of 
the  parent  body,  modified  by  lay  representation  through 
the  local  preachers.  Allen  was  elected  bishop  by  its 
General  Conference  in  1816,  and  consecrated  by  five 
regularly  ordained  ministers,  one  of  whom  was  a  pres- 
byter of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  He  died  in 
1831 ;  but  the  denomination  has  had  a  succession  of  able 
superintendents,  some  of  whom  have  been  remarkable 
for  administrative  talent  and  pulpit  eloquence.  Of 
its  eight  bishops,  three  of  whom  have  died,  all  were 
-laves  except  one.  One  of  them,  Willis  Nazrey,  has 
episcopal  charge  of  the  Colored  British  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  in  Canada,  now  an  independent  body.  In 
the  United  States  they  have  (in  1867)  ten  Conferences, 
£50  preachers,  including  five  bishops,  bat  exclusive  of 

7  In  the  preface  to  their  Discipline  they  say  he  declared  them  "dis- 
i  by  the  Methodists."    Jiu  letter  wu  temperate  and  kindly,  and 
simply  stated  the  facts  of  the  case  as  affected  by  the  charter  and  the 
laws  of  the  Church. 


262  HISTORY    OF    THE 

1,500  local  preachers,  and  about  200,000  members,  seven 
eighths  of  whom  live  in  the  southern  states.  They 
have  Church  property  to  the  amount  of  *bur  millions  ot 
dollars,  a  Book  Concern  in  Philadelphia,  a  weekly  news- 
paper, and  a  college  in  Ohio.8  A  later  organization  oi 
colored  Methodists  has  also  acquired  some  importance, 
reporting  more  than  90,000  members,  with  about  400 
traveling  and  many  local  preachers.  It  sprung  indi- 
rectly from  the  "AUenite"  secession.  The  latter  es- 
tablished a  congregation  in  New  York  city,  over  which 
their  bishop  appointed  a  colored  local  preacher  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  first  giving  him  ordina- 
tion. There  were  about  eight  hundred  and  forty 
Africans  in  the  city  Methodist  Churches  in  1818,  but 
in  1821  only  sixty-one  remained.  A  schism  had  been 
working  during  the  interval  by  the  influence  of  Allen's 
congregation,  but  it  became  hostile  to  his  jurisdic- 
tion, and  resulted  in  the  second  African  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  distinguished  usually  by  the  prefix 
"Zion,"  as  the  first  usually  is  by  that  of  "Bethel," 
taken  from  the  titles  of  their  original  Churches  in  the 
respective  cities.  The  two  denominations  are  quite 
distinct,  though  maintaining  cordial  relations  with  each 
other. 

As  these  bodies  differ  in  no  fundamental  respect 
from  the  parent  Church,  and  as  a  difference  of  the 
human  skin  can  be  no  justifiable  reason  for  a  distinction 
in  Christian  communion,  the  time  may  come  when  the 
parent  Church  may  have  the  opportunity  of  making  an 
impressive  demonstration  against  absurd  convention- 
alism, and  in  favor  of  the  sublime  Christian  doctrine  of 
the  essential  equality  of  all  good  men  in  the  kingdom  of 

8  Memorial  to  the  General  Conference  of  the  M.  E.  Church,  South. 
1866.    See  Meth.  Quart.  Rev.,  1866,  p.  438     New  Tork. 


MKT1I0DIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  263 

God,  by  receiving  back  to  its  shelter,  without  invidious 
or  discriminative  terms,  these  large  masses  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,  and  by  sharing  with  them  its  abundant 
resources  for  the  elevation  of  their  race.  Such  an  act 
would  seem  to  be  the  necessary  consummation  of  that 
revolution  of  public  opinion  which  has  been  providen- 
tially effected  by  the  great  war  of  the  rebellion. 

Methodism    continued    to    extend    up    the    Hudson 
through  all  this  period.      Its  long  depressed  prospects 
in  Troy  began  to  brighten,  and  as  early  as  1809  a  small 
chapel  was  erected  in  State-street,  its  only  one  for  a 
score  of  years.9     In  1810  it  is  first  reported  as  a  station 
under  Dr.  Phoebus.    The  next  year  it  was  again  merged 
in  an  adjoining  circuit;  but,  in  1813,  Laban  Chirk  had 
charge    of  it    as    a    station.       In    1815    Tobias    Spice  r 
preached  there  with  great  succes.     A  revival  prevailed 
about  two  years.     He  reported  two  hundred  and  fifty 
communicants,   and   doubled    the    membership.      Dur- 
ing his  ministry  a   young  man  by  the  name  of  Xoah 
Levings  became  active  as  an  exhorter.     "  After  working 
at  the  an\il,  through  the  day,  he  would  throw  off  his 
apron  and  paper  cap,  wash,  and  change  his  dress,  and 
walk,  with  Spicer,  to  Albia,  where  he  exhorted  at  the 
close  of  the  sermons.*'     Naturally  gifted  with  energy, 
rare  tact,  and  vivid  eloquence,  young  Levings  rapidly 
row  to  eminence  not  only  in  his  own  denomination,  but 
in   the  general  religious  community.     In  1817  Samuel 
Luckey  had  similar  success  in  Troy,  adding  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  members.     In   1813  the  erection   oi 
Division-street  church  in  Albany  gave  a  new  impulse 
t)  the  denomination  in  that  city,  and  it  lias  advanced, 
though   with  occasional  and  severe  trials,  ever  since. 

*  The  date  i.s  uncertain.     It  was  "about  the  year  1807  to  1809."- 
Purk  -  Troj  'our.  Miscellany,  p.  48. 


264  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Zealous  Captain  Webb  bad  preached  in  Schenectady  as 
early  as  1766  or  1767,  but  its  first  Methodist  society 
was  not  formed  till  1807,  when  Andrew  M'Kain,  of 
Albany  Circuit,  united  some  fifteen  or  twenty  members 
who  had  been  converted,  in  social  meetings,  at  the 
house  of  Richard  Clute.  The  same  year  Samuel  Howe 
was  appointed  their  circuit  preacher.  They  worshiped 
in  private  houses,  and,  later,  in  a  schoolhouse,  till  1309, 
when  they  built  a  humble  temple,  and  in  1816  became 
a  station  under  the  charge  of  Laban  Clark,  though  yet 
a  "little  flock,"  comprising  but  fifty  members.  Nearly 
the  whole  Ashgrove  District  was  astir  with  revivals 
during  these  years.  Camp-meetings  were  now  in  more 
general  vogue  than  ever,  and  rekindled,  summer  after 
summer,  religious  interest  throughout  the  whole  ter- 
ritory of  the  middle  and  northern  Conferences. 

In  each  year  of  the  period,  able  young  men,  besides 
those  already  mentioned,  and  destined  to  become  gen- 
erally recognized  as  ministerial  leaders,  but  of  most  of 
whom  no  adequate  records  remain,  entered  the.  itinerancy: 
in  1805  Charles  Giles,  George  Lane;  in  1807,  Peter  P. 
Sandford,  Phineas  Rice,  Lewis  Pease,  George  Harmon ; 
in  1808,  Friend  Draper,  Thomas  Neal,  William  Jewett; 
in  1809,  Stephen  Martindale,  Isaac  Puffer,  Loring  Grant, 
Coles  Carpenter,  George  Gary;  in  1810,  Arnold  Scole- 
field,  Benjamin  G.  Paddock,  Seth  Mattison ;  in  1811, 
Joseph  Lybrand,  Manning  Force,  John  B.  Matthias, 
Benjamin  Griffin,  Marmaduke  Pearce;  in  1812,  David 
Daily,  George  Banghart,  Tobias  Spicer,  Elisba  Williams, 
William  Ross,  Gad  Smith,  Gideon  Lanning ;  in  1813, 
John  Potts,  Israel  Chamberlayne;  in  1814,  Joseph  Rus- 
ling,  Buel  Goodsell,  Elias  Bowen ;  in  1815,  Richard  W. 
Petherbridge,  Josiah  Bowen;  and  in  the  remaining  five 
years  John  Dempster,  George  Peck,  Fitch  Reed,  Jolu 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  265 

J.  Matthias,  Charles  Pitman,  Noah  Lcvings,  Seymour 
I.andon,  Zachariah  Paddock,  Glezen  Fillmore,  men  of 
pre-eminence  in  the  pastorate,  or  in  educational  institu- 
tions, editorial  positions,  the  missionary  secretaryship, 
the  American  Bible  Society,  but  who  were  yet  in  their 
youthful  preparatory  training.  Scores  of  others  joined 
the  itinerancy  with  these,  many  of  them  scarcely  less  im- 
portant laborers,  if  not  so  familiar  to  the  present  gen 
eration  of  Methodists,  and  whose  names,  with  these,  may 
hereafter  be  more  conveniently  commemorated. 


166  HISTORY    OF    THE 


CHAPTER  Y. 


1804-1820:  CONCLUDED. 

Methodism  in  the  Interior  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  —  Old  Ca- 
naan Circuit  —  Peter  Vannest  crosses  the  Genesee  River  —  First 
Class  and  first  Camp-meeting  beyond  it  —  George  Lane — Glezen 
Fillmore  "  Exhorting  "  —  Thomas  Smith's  Northern  Adventures  — 
A  Scene  in  Lyons,  N.  Y.  —  Organization  of  Genesee  Conference  — 
Methodism  in  Canada  —  William  Case,  "  the  Apostle  to  the  Indians  " 

—  Progress  in  Canada  —  The  War  —  Robert  Hibbard  perishes  in  the 
St.  Lawrence  —  Declension  of  the  Provincial  Church  by  the  War  — 
Its  renewed  Prosperity  —  Genesee  Conference  meets  in  Canada  — 
Great  Revival  —  Continued  Success  —  Canadian  Methodism  in  1820 

—  Methodism  of  the  Middle  and  North  in  1820  —  Obituary  of  Preach- 
ers —  Asbury. 

Meanwhile  the  frontier  movement  of  Methodism  in 
the  middle  and  northern  states,  which  we  have  hereto- 
fore traced,  was  energetically  advancing.  The  Susque- 
hanna District,  pertaining  to  the  Baltimore  Conference, 
with  Owen,  Griffith,  Paynter,  Christopher  Frye,  Draper, 
and  a  succession  of  similar  men,  as  preachers,  prospered 
greatly.  In  1807  Draper  was  sent  to  form  the  Canaan 
Circuit,1  of  ancient  renown,  and  the  Church  advanced 
rapidly  among  the  Cumberland,  Tioga,  and  Wyoming 
mountains  and  valleys.  The  local  historian,  referring  tc 
Canaan  Circuit  as  an  example  of  the  hard  field,  says 
that  its  itinerant  preachers  "  each  received  $49  98 
and  their  traveling  expenses.  Let  the  present  race  of 
preachers  survey  the  territory,  think  of  the  roads  as 
they  then  were,  and  of  the  accommodations,  and  look 
»  Peck's  "Early  Methodism,"  p.  158. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCII.        2b7 

it  the  scanty  pittance  which  the  preachers  received, 
and  ask  themselves  if  the  contrast  presents  no  occasion 
for  gratitude  and  contentment.  Here  is  embraced  the 
whole  of  the  present  Honesdale  District,  consisting  of 
seventeen  charges,  besides  portions  of  Wyoming,  Wya- 
lusing,  and  Binghamton  Districts,  and  a  portion  of 
New  York  and  Xew  Jersey  Conferences.  This  is  the 
extent  of  Canaan  Circuit  in  1810.  The  roads  cannot  be 
conceived  of  now.  We  know  what  they  were  ten  years 
later,  and  then  mud,  rocks,  stumps  and  roots,  pole 
bridges,  and  no  bridges!  To  travel  these  roads  in 
hunger,  cold,  nakedness,  and  weariness,  and  often  to 
lodge  in  open  cabins,  among  dirt  and  insects,  and  receive 
almost  fifty  dollars  in  the  course  of  the  year !  This  was 
the  itinerancy  in  1810  in  the  Genesee  Conference." 

In  the  more  northerly  interior  the  denomination  ex- 
tended among  the  Xew  York  lakes,  planting  itself  in 
mo^t  of  the  small  settlements  which  have  since  risen 
into  flourishing  towns  and  cities.  It  passed  over  the 
Genesee  River,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1804,  represented 
by  a  useful  layman,  David  Hamlin,  who  for  three 
years  gathered  the  settlers  in  his  own  house  for  relig- 
ious worship.  Peter  Yannest,  who  had  been  tending 
in  this  direction  for  years  as  an  itinerant,  forded  the 
Genesee  River  in  1807,  near  the  present  city  of  Roches- 
ter, and  delivered  his  first  sermon  in  what  is  now  Ogden 
Center.  The  first  class  was  organized  the  same  year  in 
Xewstead,  at  the  house  of  Charles  Knight.  The  next 
year  a  youth,  George  Lane,  afterward  well  known 
throughout  the  <  hnrch,  as  a  faithful  itinerant,  as  Book 
.\_  nt  at  New  York,  and  as  a  saintly  man.  crossed  the 
Genesee,  and  held  the  first  camp-meeting  of  that  region. 
He  traveled  Vannest's  new  circuit,  laboring  unceasingly, 
and  spread  out  the  cause  in  all  directions,  preaching 
D— 13  * 


268  HISTORY    OF    THE 

as  far  as  Buffalo.  He  reached  at  last  the  northern- 
most tracks  of  the  ultra- Alleghany  itinerants  of  Penn- 
sylvania, in  the  region  since  known  as  the  Erie  Confer- 
ence. In  1809  Glezen  Fillmore,  a  young  "  exhorter," 
visited  Clarence.  "He  had  joined  the  Church  in  West- 
moreland. He  went  to  a  place  now  called  Skinnersville, 
to  see  a  family  with  whom  he  had  been  acquainted  at 
the  East.  He  was  invited  to  hold  a  meeting,  and 
eft  an  appointment  for  the  next  Sabbath.  On  Sun- 
day morning  he  went,  and,  on  his  approach,  he  saw 
people  wandering  about  carelessly ;  but  upon  ariving  at 
the  place  of  meeting  he  found  no  one  there  except  the 
family.  Wright,  the  man  of  the  house,  seemed  distressed 
at  the  disappointment,  and,  rising  under  the  influence  of 
considerable  excitement,  said,  'I  cannot  stand  it.'  He 
went  out,  and  returned  with  two  persons,  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Maltby,  and  his  wife.  The  family  and  these  two 
constituted  the  congregation ;  but  Fillmore,  nothing 
daunted,  proceeded  with  his  meeting.  Maltby  and  his 
wife  seemed  considerably  impressed.  At  the  close  of 
the  exercises  Maltby  said  it  had  been  '  a  solemn  meet- 
ing,' repeating  the  words  several  times.  He  invited 
Fillmore  to  hold  another  at  his  house  the  next  Sab- 
bath, to  which  he  gave  his  cordial  consent.  When  the 
time  arrived  the  house  was  full,  and  a  good  religious 
feeling  prevailed.  A  revival  immediately  commenced, 
and  a  society  was  formed.  Maltby  and  his  wife  were 
among  the  converts,  and  he  became  a  local  preacher 
Four  of  his  sons  are  now  members  of  the  Erie  Confer- 
ence. Grand  results  often  follow  what  appear  to  be 
small  causes :  Fillmore  was  licensed  to  preach,  and 
continued  his  labors  in  a  local  capacity  for  the  space  of 
nine  years,  preaching  in  the  newly  opening  settlements, 
and    preparing   the    way   for   the   traveling  preachers. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    UHURCH.         269 

This  period  he  considers  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
successful  portions  of  his  life."  He  was  to  have  a  prom- 
inent place  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the  Church. 

In  18u5  Thomas  Smith,  whose  notable  adventures  in 
New  Jersey  and  more  southern  regions  have  been 
related,  was  sent,  with  Charles  Giles,  to  the  Seneca 
Circuit,  which  comprised  all  the  country  between  the 
Cayuga  and  Seneca  Lakes,  south  and  west  of  the  latter, 
and  north  to  Lyons,  with  few  settlers  scattered  over  it, 
and  they  extremely  poor.  Smith  had  his  usual  trials 
and  success  in  this  new  field.  On  his  way  to  it  his  life 
was  periled  by  a  highwayman,  who  attacked  him  in  the 
Water  Gap  of  the  Blue  Mountain.  He  found  Indians 
still  numerous  on  his  circuit,  and  preached  where  "the 
shining  tomahawk  and  glittering  scalping  knife"  were 
within  sight.  He  suffered  from  the  diseases  of"  the 
country,  and  at  one  time  "lay  six  days,  on  three  old 
chairs,"  in  a  log-cabin,  sick  with  fever.  He  was,  how- 
ever, a  dauntless  itinerant.  It  was  of  himself  that  he 
-poke  when,  alluding  to  the  sufferings  of  the  ministry, 
lie  recorded  that  he  knew  "one  that  has  rode  four  thou- 
sand miles,  and  preached  four  hundred  sermons  in  one 
year,  and  laid  many  nights  on  wet  cabin  floors,  some- 
times covered  with  snow  through  the  night,  and  his 
horse  standing  under  a  pelting  storm  of  snow  or  rain, 
and  at  the  end  of  that  year  received  his  traveling  ex- 
penses and  four  silver  dollars  of  his  salary.'"  He  held 
frequent  camp-meetings  among  the  settlers,  and  pushed 
forward  on  his  circuit  a-  if  determined  to  conquer  the 
whole  country.  Opposers  could  do!  Btand  before  him. 
II'-  assailed  them  -'-met  mes  in  <[uit<-  original  modes  of 
attack.  At  Lyons  lived  a  highly  respectable  Methodist, 
Judg<  D  -  y,  whose  wife.  Eleanor  Dorsey,  was  one  of 
*  Smith's  "Experience  and  M  rs,"  p.  no. 


270  HISTORY    OF    THE 

those  "  women  of  Methodism  "  who  ministered  to  Asbury 
and  the  other  earliest  itinerants  in  Maryland.3  The 
general  spirit  of  emigration  had  led  them  to  this  new 
country,  and  their  house  was  now  the  home  of  Method- 
ist preachers.  Smith  went  to  Lyons,  and  says  :  "  Here 
we  had  a  respectable  society,  and  a  small  meeting- 
house. But  the  people  of  Lyons  were  generally  wicked. 
They  took  pleasure  in  unrighteousness,  in  deriding  the 
ways  of  God,  and  in  persecuting  the  humble  followers 
of  Jesus  Christ.  They  interrupted  and  insulted  us  in 
our  religious  worship,  and  on  this  evening  they  were 
worse  than  usual.  I  paused  until  I  got  their  attention, 
and  then  remarked  that  I  should  not  wonder  if  Lyons 
should  be  visited  on  the  morrow  in  a  way  that  it  never 
had  been  before,  and  perhaps  never  would  be  again  to 
the  end  of  time.  We  then  had  quietness  to  the  close  of 
the  meeting.  When  the  congregation  was  dismissed, 
and  I  had  come  out  of  the  house,  the  people  gathered 
around  me,  and  with  one  voice  cried  out,  'For  God's 
sake,  tell  us  what  is  to  happen  here  to-morrow  ! '  T 
replied,  '  Let  to-morrow  speak  for  itself.'  I  went  home 
with  Judge  Dorsey,  a  short  distance  from  the  town. 
After  breakfast  the  next  day  I  said  to  Mrs.  Dorsey,  '  I 
wish  you  to  go  with  me  into  Lyons  this  morning,  as 
there  are  some  families  to  which  I  cannot  get  access 
without  you.'  She,  being  acquainted  with  the  place, 
readily  consented.  At  nine  o'clock  A.  M.  we  entered 
the  town.  Scores  from  the  country  were  already  there, 
and  the  place  was  in  commotion.      We  went  to  the 

house  of  Mr. ,  where  we  were  politely  received.     I 

knew  if  we  could  storm  that  castle  the  day  was  ours. 
After  conversing  some  time,  I  remarked  that  Mrs.  Dor- 
sey and  myself  were  on  a  visit  to  Lyons,  and,  if  it  were 
3  "  Women  of  Methodism,"  p.  250.     New  York,  1866. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.          Ly7l 

agreeable,  we  would  pray  before  we  parted.  'By  all 
means,  Mr.  Smith;  by  all  means,  sir.'  Before  prayer 
was  over  there  were  scores  of  people  at  the  door,  and 
by  tliis  time  the  order  of  the  day  began  to  be  under 

Bl 1.  and  they  that   feared   God   were  at  their  posts, 

joming  up  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty. 
We  then  went,  in  large  procession,  from  house  to  house, 
entering  every  door  in  order,  and  praying  for  the  souls 
of  the  families.  Our  little  band  soon  increased  to  some 
three  or  four  hundred.  When  we  came  near  the  tavern, 
where  we  had  been  derided,  it  was  inquired, '  Will 
they  admit  us?'  But  the  doors  and  windows  being 
open,  we  entered  in,  and  was  there  ever  such  a  shout 
while  storming  Lucifer's  castle  ?  At  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  we  called  a  halt  to  see  what  was  done,  and, 
forming  a  circle  on  the  green,  the  new  converts  were 
invited  within  the  circle,  when  thirty-two  came  in,  who 
that  day  had  found  the  pearl  of  greal  price,  Christ  in 
them  the  hope  of  glory.  These  thirty-two,  and  eight 
more,  were  added  to  the  Church  of  God  on  that  after- 
noon. Thank-  be  to  God,  this  was  another  good  day's 
work  in  the  Lord's  vineyard.  This  meeting  produced  a 
pleasing  change  in  Lyons,  and  Methodism  gained  a 
footing  in  that  place  it  never  had  before.  To  God  be 
the  glory  ! v 

rapidly  had  it  spread  through  these  interioi 
re'_ri"ns  that  in  1810  Asbury  organized  it  in  a  new 
Conference.  Hitherto  its  territory  had  been  strangely 
divided  among  tin-  New  York.  Philadelphia,  and  Bal- 
timore Conference-.  It  was  now  t«>  have  unity,  and  10 
v  into  one  'f  the  Btrongesl  bodies  of  the 
denomination,  and  to  yield  in  our  day  live  Confi 
On  the  twentieth  of  July  the  preachers  of  tin*  Susque- 
hanna,  Cayuga,   and    tWO   Canada    Districts,    were   cue 


2/2     .  HISTORY    OF    THE 

vened  at  the  barn  of  Judge  Dorsey,  in  Lyons,  and 
there  formed  the  new  organization,  comprising  all  their 
recent  territory,  except  Lower  Canada.  Asbury  and 
M'Kendree  presided.  Increased  efficiency  was  thus  im- 
mediately given  to  its  work.  Its  three  districts,  thirty 
circuits,  and  ten  thousand  seven  hundred  members  of 
1810  increased,  by  the  end  of  the  present  period,  to 
eight  districts,  seventy-four  circuits,  and  nearly  twenty- 
four  thousand  members,  more  than  doubling  all  its 
forces  in  a  decade.  It  included  Canada  during  the 
whole  period. 

In  the  latter  country  now  appeared,  (in  1805,)  for  the 
first  time,  two  very  important  men,  Henry  Ryan  and 
William  Case.  The  former  we  have  already  met  in 
Vermont,  where  he  began  his  ministry  in  1800,  an 
energetic  Irishman,  and  one  of  the  sturdiest  itinerants 
of  his  day.  William  Case  will  ever  rank  as  one  of  the 
noblest  acquisitions  of  the  ministry.  Known  most 
generally  as  the  "  Apostle  to  the  Canadian  Indians,"  he 
was,  nevertheless,  a  New  Englander,  born  at  Swansea, 
Mass.,  in  1780.4  He  was  converted  in  1803,  received 
into  the  New  York  Conference  in  1805,  and,  being 
young  and  zealous,  was  forthwith  sent  to  Canada.  He 
was  subsequently  tossed  about  for  years  in  the  Province 
and  in  the  States,  from  the  Ulster  Circuit  in  New  York 
to  Detroit  in  Michigan.  He  was  one  of  the  original 
members  of  the  Genesee  Conference,  and  one  of  its  first 
three  presiding  elders  in  1810;  Draper  and  Ryan  being 
the  two  others.  For  eighteen  years  he  had  charge  of 
districts — the  Cayuga,  Oneida,  Chenango,  Lower  Can- 
ada, Upper  Canada,  and  Bay  of  Quinte.  In  1828  he 
was  appointed  superintendent  of  Indian  missions  and 
schools  in  Canada,  and  in  1830  general  superintendent 
*  Carroll's  "  Past  and  Present,"  p.  230.    Toronto,  1860. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    OHUKCH.         273 

of  the  Methodist  societies  in  the  province.  During 
several  years  he  was  missionary  to  the  Indians,  when 
a  "  sack,  inclosed  in  a  blanket,  slung  on  the  "back  by 
what  was  called  a  'tnmpline'  across  the  shoulders 
and  a  gun,  with  a  small  store  of  powder,  constituted 
an  Indian  preacher's  outfit/'  In  1852  he  was  allowed 
to  travel  and  preach  at  large  through  the  province  till 
his  death  in  1855.  He  was  esteemed  for  years  as  the 
patriarch  and  leader  of  Canadian  Methodism,  the  chief 
of  its  great  mission  field,  a  truly  apostolic  man,  fervid, 
genial,  prudent,  attractive  and  effective  in  the  pulpit, 
singularly  successful  and  beloved  among  the  Indians. 
He  was  instrumental  in  the  conversion  of  hundreds  of 
the  latter,  and  equally  useful  among  the  whites,  and 
was  especially  conspicuous  in  a  general  revival  in  1808, 
u  when  the  voice  of  prayer  and  praise  was  heard  by  day 
ami  night  in  the  houses  and  barns,  in  the  fields  and 
woods,  all  over  the  country."  Canadian  Methodism 
mostly  grew  up  during  his  ministry  in  the  province, 
and  he  lived  to  see  it  represented  by  three  hundred  and 
thirty  itinerants,  scattered  over  two  hundred  and  ten 
circuits.  "He  was,"  says  a  Canadian  authority,5  "the 
director  of  the  rising  ministry  of  the  Methodist  Church 
in  Canada  before  she  had  a  college  in  which  to  train 
them,  and  he  was  the  friend  of  that  institution  from  the 
moment  it  was  projected  to  the  day  of  his  death,  watch- 
ing its  progress  and  doings  with  the  most  lively  interest. 
lie  would  sometimes  talk  about  'his  boys'  in  the  pulpit 
in  a  way  that  set  the  young  aspirants  to  usefulness 
ping  around  him.  Little  children,  too,  he  loved, 
and  took  a  great  interest  in  their  schools.  On  th^s 
account  he  was  a  welcome  visitant  in  the  vario  is  fami- 
lies who>e  hospitality  lie  enjoyed.  The  little  Indian 
■  Carroll,  | 


274  HISTORY    OF    THE 

children,  even,  would  literally  pluck  his  clothes,  'to 
share  the  good  man's  smile.'  Nor  did  they  fail  in  their 
object.  He  would  often  pursue  these  tawny  little  ones, 
and,  catching  them,  would  kiss  them  with  all  the  fond- 
ness imaginable." 

In  1806  Canada  has  two  districts,  and  twelve  ciicuits, 
including  two  pertaining  to  New  York  Conference. 
Samuel  Coate  is  at  Montreal,  and  Nathan  Bangs  at 
Quebec.  A  Lower  Canada  District  appears  in  the  Min 
utes,  and  a  mission  to  its  French  population  is  added 
to  the  appointments.  Thomas  Whitehead,  a  Wesleyan 
preacher  of  Nova  Scotia,  but  born  in  the  United  States, 
is  added  to  the  little  ministerial  corps,  and  also  Andrew 
Prindle,  the  second  native  Canadian  itinerant.  The 
first,  Sylvanus  Keeler,  locates,  but  continues  through 
his  life  to  promote  effectively  his  Church.  They  were 
the  beginning  of  a  powerful  native  ministry,  which  in  a 
few  years  was  to  rendqr  Canadian  Methodism  independ- 
ent of  foreign  laborers.  In  1808  the  first  report  of 
members  in  Quebec  appears ;  hardly  more  than  a  single 
"  class,"  thirteen  in  number.  Methodism,  however,  was 
destined  to  find  a  stronghold  in  that  city,  though  long 
harassed  by  public  prejudice,  and  the  coming  war.  In 
1 809  Detroit,  Mich.,  is  reached  by  Case.  Bangs  had  been 
defeated  there,  as  we  have  seen,  but  the  new  itinerant  met 
with  better  auspices.  "  The  gospel  spread  fast,"  says  the 
Canadian  Methodist  historian,6  "like  fire  through  dry 
stubble."  Detroit  continued  to  be,  for  years,  an  ap- 
pointment of  the  Upper  Canada  District ;  Methodist 
preachers  took  yet  but  little  note  of  geographical  de- 
marcations, civil  or  physical ;  with  Wesley,  they  consid- 
ered "  the  world  to  be  their  parish."  In  the  same  yeai 
the  Three  Rivers  Circuit,  in  Lower  Canada,  was  re- 
« Playter,  p.  97. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  275 

ported,  and  traveled  by  Joseph  Sampson,  the  third 
native  Methodist  itinerant,  though  he  now  came  from 
Baltimore  Conference. 

At  the  organization  of  the  Genesee  Conference  in 
1810  the  Upper  Canada  District  was  placed  under  its 
jurisdiction,  while  that  of  Lower  Canada  was  retained 
by  Xew  York  Conference  ;  there  were  not  yet,  however, 
two  hundred  members  in  all  the  five  appointments  of  the 
latter.  Joseph  Sawyer  now  located ;  Case  went  to  pre- 
side over  the  Cayuga  District,  in  Xew  York ;  but  rein- 
forcements arrived.  There  were  seventeen  circuits  and 
t  went  y-one  preachers.  Luckey  was  among  them  the  next 
year,  and  found,  on  his  remote  Ottawa  Circuit,  a  hundred 
and  sixteen  members.  The  whole  country  now  became 
alarmed  by  the  omens  of  the  approaching  war,  and,  in 
the  next  year,  none  of  the  preachers  went  to  the  Con- 
ferences in  the  states.  That  of  Xew  York  gave  up  all 
the  lower  provinee  to  that  of  Genesee,  except  the  Dunham 
Circuit.  Xew  England  Conference  retained  Stanstead 
Circuit,  where  Charles  Virgin,  David  Kilbourn,  and  other 
eastern  itinerants  had  been  laboring  for  some  year-, 
crossing  the  line  of  their  Vermont  territory.  Xo  re 
turns  of  members  reached  the  Genesee  Conference  from 
tli.'  upper  province,  but,  in  the  lower,  Montreal  reported 
more  than  fifty,  Quebec  about  half  that  number,  Ottawa 
Circuit  about  a  hundred,  and  that  of  St.  Francis  River 
one  hundred  and  twenty.  Bangs  was  appointed  to 
Montreal,  but  did  not  reach  it  on  account  of  the  mili- 
tary obstructions  between  the  two  countries.  Thorn. is 
Borch  was  sent  to  Quebec,  and  made  his  way  thither; 
Luckey,  appointed  to  St.  Francis,  failed  to  get  there. 
Robert  Elibbard,  a  native  of  New  Fork,  who  had  joined 
its  Conference  in  1 809,  and  for  two  years  had  labored 
faithfully   in   Canada,   where    he   had    formed   the   St. 


276  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Francis  Circuit,  gathering  upon  it  more  than  a  hundred 
members,  consented  to  return  notwithstanding  the 
troubled  times.  He  reached  the  Ottawa  Circuit,  and 
kept  to  his  work,  though  the  provincial  government 
had,  by  proclamation,  ordered  all  citizens  of  the  United 
States  to  leave  the  country.  Learning  that  the  preach- 
ers for  the  St.  Francis  Circuit,  so  dear  to  him,  as  his  own 
work,  had  not  arrived,  he  resolved  to  go  thither  and 
encourage  the  Churches  under  their  new  trials.  He 
reached  Montreal,  but  in  his  further  progress  was 
drowned  in  the  St.  Lawrence  ;  his  horse  escaped  to  the 
shore,  but  the  evangelical  hero  was  borne  away,  and 
was  seen  "going  down  with  his  hands  lifted  toward 
heaven."  His  body  was  never  found.  He  was  a  sanc- 
tified man,  "  studious,"  and  "  indefatigable,"  and,  say 
his  brethren  in  their  Minutes,  "  entered  the  watery 
grave  to  rise  again  to  a  glorious  immortality  at  the  last 
day."7  Asbury  delivered  a  "funeral  sermon"  on  the 
event  before  the  next  New  York  Conference. 

In  1813  the  war  had  cut  off  all  communication  be- 
tween the  Churches  of  the  two  countries.  The  preach- 
ers could  not  attend  the  Genesee  Conference,  but  they 
met  together  and  made  their  own  appointments  as  best 
they  could.  The  circuits  of  the  upper  district  were  at 
least  nominally  manned,  but  in  the  lower,  Quebec, 
Montreal,  St.  Francis,  and  Ottawa,  were  without 
preachers.  Several  itinerants  in  the  upper  province 
located ;  all,  indeed,  except  Ryan,  Rhodes,  Whitehead, 
and  Prindle.  Those  who  located,  however,  continued 
to  serve  the  Church  in  their  respective  localities,  and 
some  of  the  located  veterans,  Sawyer  in  Matilda,  Keeler 
in  Elizabethtown,  and  Dunham  in  Fredericksburgh, 
worked  zealously  in  these  and  neighboring  places 
T  Minutes  of  1813. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCIT.        277 

Methodism  was  thus  sustained  during  the  crisit  The 
Church  in  Quebec  had  no  regular  pastor  for  two  years 

of  the  struggle;  but  a  Methodist  sergeant  in  a  British 
regiment  preached  for  them  with  much  success.  When 
his  regiment  was  removed,  a  local  preacher  wras  raised 
up,  who  supplied  them  till  the  English  Conference  sent 
over  pastors  for  Montreal  and  Quebec. 

At  the  close  of  the  contest  in  1815  the  Genesee  Con- 
ference resumed  its  care  of  the  country.  Case  was  ap- 
pointed presiding  elder  of  Upper  Canada  District,  Eyan 
of  that  of  Lower  Canada.  There  were  now  but  nine 
circuits  and  twelve  preachers.  Montreal  and  Quebec 
were  misapplied;  but  the  British  Conference  sent  over 
three  missionaries  for  these  stations,  and  thus  was 
brought  on  the  question  of  territorial  jurisdiction,  which 
subsequently  led  to  no  small  amount  of  discussion  and 
negotiation,  but  was  at  last  amicably  settled  with  more 
intimate  relations  between  the  two  bodies  than  ever 
existed  before  since  the  organization  of  the  American 
Church.  The  war  ended  with  a  loss  of  nearly  one 
half  the  membership  in  Canada,  the  returns  of  1815 
amounting  to  but  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
sixty-five.  But  Methodism  was  too  vital  to  suffer  long 
from  such  a  cause.  The  next  year  the  Minutes  show 
eleven  circuits,  with  sixteen  preachers,  and  two  thou- 
sand five  hundred  members.  They  had  yet  but  eleven 
churches  or  "  meeting-houses,"  all  built  of  wood  except 
that  of  Montreal,  which  was  of  stone,  but  small.  Freer 
scope  than  ever  was  now  given  to  the  denom  nation  in 
the  Canada-. 

In  1817  the  Genesee  Conference,  many  of  whose 
preachers  were  curious  to  see  their  foreign  territory, 
held  its  session  at  Elizabethtown,  Canada.  About 
eighty  of  them   assembled  there,  including  twenty-two 


278  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Canadian  itinerants.  Enoch  George  presided,  and  the 
occasion  was  a  jubilee  to  the  Church  in  the  wilderness. 
There  was  daily  and  powerful  preaching,  and  a  great 
revival  was  kindled.  It  was  estimated  that  one  hund- 
red souls  were  awakened  at  the  session,  and  a  flam*!  of 
religious  excitement  spread  out  among  the  circuits,  -4 
that  an  increase  of  one  thousand  four  hundred  members 
the  ensuing  year  was  attributed  to  this  first  Canadian 
Conference.  The  gospel  was  now  preached  in  every 
English  settlement  of  Upper  Canada,  for  Methodism, 
besides  its  itinerants,  traveling  immense  circuits,  had  a 
large  corps  of  local  preachers  and  exhorters,  who  were 
kept  incessantly  at  work.  Meanwhile  the  British  Con- 
ference continued  to  send  out  Wesleyan  missionaries. 
There  were  nine  of  them  in  the  country  in  1818,  who 
extended  their  labors  even  to  Toronto  and  the  Bay  of 
Quinte,  and  thus  further  complicated  the  question  of 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  Correspondence  between  the 
American  bishops  and  the  Wesleyan  Missionary  Com- 
mittee, London,  followed ;  the  relations  of  the  two 
Churches  were  cordial,  but  unsettled  in  respect  to 
Canada,  and  could  not  be  adjusted  till  the  next  General 
Conference,  when  Emory  was  dispatched  to  England 
for  the  purpose. 

In  1820  the  Genesee  Conference  again  met  in  Canada, 
at  Niagara,  the  oldest  town  in  the  province.  About  a 
hundred  itinerants  were  present,  eighteen  recruits  were 
received,  thirty  young  preachers  were  ordained,  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty-two  appointed  to  circuits  and  sta- 
tions. There  were  now  in  Upper  Canada  sixteen  cler- 
gymen of  the  Church  of  England,  fifteen  Presbyterian 
and  Congregational,  and  eighteen  Baptist  preachers. 
The  Methodist  itinerants  (including  the  Wesleyan  mis- 
sionaries) were   thirty-three,  besides   forty-seven   local 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         279 

preachers,  ami  sixty-five  extorters.9  Many  f  the  local 
preachers  having  been  noted  itinerants,  continued  to 
perforin  as  effective  work  as  any  pastors  of  other  de- 
nominations. The  actual  working  ministry  of  Method- 
ism must  now  have  constituted  more  than  one  half  of 
the  pastoral  supply  of  the  province.  William  Case  and 
Henry  Ryan  were  at  the  head  of  its  itinerants  as  pre- 
siding elders,  the  former  on  the  Upper,  the  latter  on  the 
Lower  Canada  Districts.  The  number  of  Methodists  in 
the  country  (including  the  Wesleyan  charges)  amounted 
to  six  thousand  three  hundred.  They  had  much  more 
than  trebled  in  these  sixteen  years,  though  they  had 
thus  far  only  been  planting  in  the  wilderness,  the  germs 
of  that  harvest  which  was  to  yield,  in  our  day,  nearly 
one  hundred  thousand  members  in  the  various  Methodist 
communion-,  and  nearly  a  thousand  traveling  preacher-, 
with  Indian  mis-ions,  publishing  houses,  periodical-, 
colleges,  academies,  and  churches,  many  of  them  costly 
edifices,  adorning  the  whole  settled  country.  They 
were  to  keep  pace  with  emigration,  and  reach  w  •  3t> 
ward  to  the  Pacific  coast  ;  and  eastward,  till  they 
should  blend  with  the  Methodism  planted  by  Cough- 
land,  M'Greary,  Black,  and  Garrettson  on  the  Atlantic 
st,  and  the  denomination  become  the  most  effective 
religious  force  of  British  North  America. 

The  period  closes  then  with  a  grand  exhibit  of  strength 
and  prospect  lor  the  middle  and  northern  field*  of  the 
denomination.  Not  merely  their  numerical  growth  from 
two  to  three  Conferences,  from  40,415  t-<  B2,215  mem 
herb,  and  from  135  to  207  preachers,  more  than  doubling 
their  force  in  these  sixteen  years,  in  Bpite  of  secessions 

in   Philadelphia    and    New    Fork;    but   the    intellectual 

■  L  M  and  Ryan  (J  .  to  Nathan  Bangs.      Play- 

tor,  p.  ML 


280  HISTORY    OF    THE 

advancement  of  their  ministry,  the  rapid  erection  of 
church  edifices,  the  ever  memorable  organization  of 
the  general  Missionary  Society,  the  beginning  of  peri- 
odical publications,  and  the  recommencement  of  aca- 
demic institutions,  (all  three  events  in  New  York  city,) 
render  this  one  of  the  most  imposing  epochs  of  American 
Methodism. 

More  than  thirty  itinerants  of  the  middle  and  northern 
Conferences  fell  at  their  posts,  by  death,  in  these  sixteen 
years.  Besides  some  special  cases,  heretofore  noticed, 
like  those  of  Peter  Moriarty,  John  M'Claskey,  Anning 
Owen,  and  Robert  Hibbard,  the  obituary  of  the  Minutes 
in  1805  records  the  name  of  Daniel  Ryan,  of  Philadelphia, 
who  died  "  overwhelmed  with  a  sense  of  the  presence 
and  glory  of  God  ;"  of  Benjamin  Iliff,  of  Bucks  County, 
Pa.,  who  sickened  on  his  way  from  Conference,  whose 
"happiness  seemed  to  increase  with  his  illness,"  and  who 
died  saying,  "  I  have  lost  sight  of  the  world ;  come,  Lord 
Jesus,  come  quickly."  In  1806  James  Lattomus,  of 
Delaware,  who  "departed  in  peace."  In  1808  Richard 
Swain,  of  New  Jersey,  who,  after  long  labors  and  suf- 
ferings, died  "  in  confident  peace,  triumphant  faith,  and 
the  smiles  of  a  present  God."  In  1810  John  Wilson, 
an  Englishman,  some  years  a  preacher  in  the  old  country, 
from  1804  till  his  death  Book  Agent  at  New  York,  "an 
able  divine,"  "  conversant  with  the  Greek  and  Roman 
classics,"  powerful  in  the  pulpit,  a  preacher  of  "sanctifi- 
cation ;"  he  died  suddenly  of  suffocation  by  asthma. 
Thomas  Daughaday,  of  Maryland,  who  fell  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, his  last  utterance  being  the  words,  "Glory! 
glory  ! "  Thomas  Budd,  of  New  Jersey,  who  died  in 
Philadelphia,  harassed  on  his  deathbed  with  doubts; 
"  but  the  cloud  suddenly  burst,  and  his  soul  was  filled 
with  joy."    William  Keith,  of  Massachusetts,  who  died  in 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  281 

New  York  city  ;  troubled  also,  like  Budd,  and  Bunyaif  s 
Pilgrim,  as  be  approached  the  end,  but  declaring  at  last 
that  "  the  fear  of  death  and  hell  is  wholly  taken  away 
and  I  have  a  hope  of  immortality  ;"  a  man  of  extreme 
humility  and  diffidence,  but  of  great  power  in  preaching. 
Gideon  A.  Knowlton,  of  Connecticut,  a  laborer  in  in- 
terior New  York;  he  attended  and  helped  to  organize 
the  first  Genesee  Conference,  and.  returned  to  die,  exclaim- 
ing, "  I  am  now  going  to  my  eternal  home ;  I  know  that 
my  Redeemer  liveth."  In  1811  Lansford  Whiting,  who, 
after  traveling  three  years  in  the  state  of  New  York 
and  Canada,  volunteered  to  accompany  M'Kendree  to 
the  "Western  Conference,  but  on  the  way  was  attacked 
with  small-pox,  returned,  and  died  in  peace,  a  meek  and 
useful  man.  In  1812  Samuel  Thomas,  of  New  Jersey,  a 
very  holy  man,  "  yet  subject  to  dejection,  and  frequently 
tempted  and  buffeted  by  the  devil,"  but  who  died  in 
great  peace.  John  Smith,  of  Maryland,  who  had  la- 
bored in  the  West  as  well  as  the  East,  and  departed, 
saying,  "I  am  not  afraid  to  die;  I  long  to  be  dissolved 
and  see  the  face  of  God."  In  1813  John  Russell,  of 
New  York  city,  who,  on  his  deathbed,  declared,  "  I 
have  found  that  love  which  casteth  out  fear,"  and  died 
■'  testifying  of  the  comforts  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Eben- 
ezer  White,  of  Massachusetts,  an  eminent  itinerant  of 
Genesee  Conference,  where  "  he  labored,  traveling 
through  storms,  heat,  and  cold,  when  his  infirmities 
indicated  dissolution  near;''  when  ,;  not  able  to  preach 
Standing  on  his  feet,  he  stood  on  his  knees"  proclaiming 
.Le  word  of  God  with  power.  lie  died  suddenly,  with- 
out a  farewell  word,  except  the  text  of  his  last  sermon, 
which  was,  "There  remaineth  a  rest  for  the  people  of 
God."  William  Mills,  of  New  Jersey,  an  officer  of  the 
Revolution,  -  in  a  prisoner  of  war  in  the  West 


282  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Indies,  a  very  zealous  and  useful  preacher,  and  a  guile- 
less man.  He  fell  under  an  attack  of  apoplexy  while 
preparing  to  preach,  and  was  found  insensible  in  his 
chamber.  Francis  Ward,  an  Irishman,  a  successful 
preacher  and  good  scholar,  who  died  in  peace.  In 
1814  Michael  Coate,  of  New  Jersey,  whom  we  have 
met  often,  not  only  in  the  middle  states,  but  in  New 
England  and  Canada,  a  man  of  great  meekness  and  use- 
fulness, and  a  powerful  preacher;  tried  "by  inexpressible 
conflicts  "  in  his  last  sickness,  but,  hearing  the  Scriptures 
read,  "the  power  of  God  filled  the  place,  and  his  soul 
was  abundantly  comforted,"  so  that  he  departed  in 
peace.  '  William  S.  Fisher,  of  New  Jersey,  who  died 
"crying  out,  Come,  Lord  Jesus,  come  quickly."  To 
his  friends  he  said,  "  All  is  peace  within  ;  I  am  going 
after  Brother  Coate."  His  last  words  in  his  last  agony 
were  "This  once  help,  Lord."  In  1815  John  Tan 
Schoick,  of  New  Jersey,  who  died  in  great  triumph, 
exclaiming,  "Keep  up  prayer;"  "come,  Lord,  roll  on 
the  victory ;  roll  on  the  victory,  holy  Lord  !  O  hasten 
the  moment,  my  Lord ! "  and  then  adding,  "  I  am 
going,"  fell  asleep.  Stephen  Richmond,  of  New  York, 
who  departed,  saying,  "My  work  is  done."  In  1818 
Joseph  Totten,  of  Long  Island,  N.  Y.,  a  good  and  useful 
man,  who  was  found  dying  and  speechless  on  the  ground 
in  a  garden.  Daniel  Moore,  of  Delaware,  who  left,  as 
his  dying  testimony,  the  assurance  that  he  "  was  going 
home  to  God."  Thomas  Thorp,  of  New  Jersey,  con- 
verted, as  we  have  seen,  under  Marvin  Richardson's 
first  sermon  on  his  first  circuit,  where  young  Thorp  was 
a  schoolmaster  at  the  time.  He  traveled  in  New  En- 
gland, and  in  the  Genesee  Conference,  and  died  "in 
peace  and  triumph."  In  1819  Stephen  Jacob,  who 
"  labored  far  beyond  his  strength,  fell  a  martyr  to  his 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         283 

work,"  and  departed  in  "holy  triumph,' '  saying,  "heaven 
heaves  in  view." 

Some  twenty-five  times  did  Asbury  pass  over  the 
middle  and  northern  states  in  the  present  period,  pene- 
trating once  into  Canada;  but  his  notes  of  his  routes 
have  their  usual  brevity  and  vagueness,  and  admit  of  no 
satisfactory  use.  In  his  early  tours  he  was  sometimes 
accompanied  by  Whatcoat,  who,  however,  was  fast 
sinking  under  chronic  maladies,  and  was  "unable  to 
ride"  much  of  the  time  "at  a  greater  speed  than  a 
walk."  In  some  of  his  later  passages  M'Kendree  was 
with  him,  keeping  good  pace,  and  delighting  him  by  his 
devout  converse  and  eloquent  preaching,  for  to  no  man, 
except  Henry  Willis,  was  Asbury  more  attached.  At 
a  session  of  the  Xew  York  Conference,  in  this  period, 
he  says  of  M'Kendree,  preaching,  '•  It  appeared  to  me 
as  if  a  ray  of  divine  glory  rested  upon  him."  Asbury, 
though  quite  broken  with  years  and  disease,  still  kept 
his  rate  of  five  or  six  thousand  miles  a  year,  writing 
often  in  his  journal,  "  faint,  sick,  and  lame."  As  early 
as  1807  he  says,  "We  have  traveled  one  hundred  miles 
up  the  Mohawk ;  my  feet  are  much  swelled ;  I  am  on 
crutches ;  but  I  have  been  supported  among  strangers." 
He  reaches  the  westernmost  fields  of  the  interior  preach- 
er, the  Pennsylvania  valleys,  and  New  York  lakes,  and 
organizes  them  into  the  independent  Genesee  Confer- 
ence. He  preaches  there  often  to  more  than  a  thousand 
settlers,  gathered  in  and  about  barns.  "The  swamps, 
sloughs,  ruts,  and  stumps  made  it  awful  moving '  he 
writes.  He  exulted,  however,  in  the  triumphs  oi  ihe 
gospel  and  the  prospects  of  the  Church  in  these  regions, 
and,  as  he  rode  away  southward,  wrote,  "What  hatu 
God  wrought  in  America!  In  thirty-six  years  we  find 
144." 90  Methodists;  our  traveling  preachers  530:  the 
D-   1 9  * 


284  HISTORY    OF    THE 

rest,  local,  about  1,400.  "  Not  unto  us,  not  unto  us.  O 
Lord,  take  thou  the  glory  !  "  "  My  body  is  very  feeble," 
he  writes  later,  "but  my  soul  enjoys  perfect  love  and 
perfect  peace."  He  was  now,  as  he  says,  "a  bishop 
who  can  neither  stand  to  preach,  nor  kneel  to  pray ;" 
"  sick,  lame,  blistered,"  but  still  driving  forward. 

It  was  in  1811  that  he  crossed  the  St.  Lawrence  to 
encourage  the  itinerant  pioneers  of  Canada.  "  Surely," 
he  wrote,  "  this  is  a  land  that  God  the  Lord  hath 
blessed."  He  greeted  there  some  of  the  remnants  of 
the  first  New  York  Methodist  families,  the  Dulmadges, 
Hecks,  and  Emburys,  spent  two  weeks  traveling  and 
preaching,  "  everywhere  treated  as  the  angel  of  the 
Churches,"  says  Boehm,  his  companion,  but  "  suffering 
like  a  martyr  "  from  inflammatory  rheumatism. 

In  the  North  as  in  the  South  he  is  now  often  reminded 
of  the  changes  of  time.  In  some  places  he  finds  only  the 
grandchildren  of  his  earliest  hearers.  He  preaches  the 
funeral  sermon  of  his  old  friend  Martin  Boehm,  and 
later  writes  out  in  the  bereaved  homestead  his  own 
"valedictory  statement"  for  M'Kendree,9  which  gives 
evident  proof  that  he  himself  is  growing  old,  and  is 
soon  to  depart.  He  meets  the  venerable  M'Graw,  of 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  who  had  so  early  be- 
friended the  Methodists  in  Delaware,  but  who  is  now 
"  quite  broken  to  pieces."  He  finds  Pilmoor  old,  but 
still  at  his  post  in  Philadelphia,  preaching  three  times 
a  Sabbath.  He  has  moments  of  pn  found  sadness, 
even  of  despondence,  yet  they  are  but  moments ;  never 
before  has  he  seemed  so  eager  to  travel,  preach,  and 

9  It  has  never  been  published.  A  copy,  in  thirty-four  closely  written 
duodecimo  pages,  is  in  my  possession,  from  the  papers  of  Rev.  F.  S. 
De  Hass.  It  shows  the  decay  of  the  bishop's  intellect,  being  written 
between  two  and  three  years  before  his  death,  and  contains  nothing  of 
historical  importance. 

d 


M  1:  T  1 1  O  I )  I  S  T    E  P I S  C 0 P  A  L    C  H  U  R  C II.         285 

achieve  well  his  great  mission.  His  absorption  in  his 
work  allows  him  to  see,  but  hardly  to  feel,  these 
changes  of  his  life ;  continual  suffering  even  cannot 
subdue  him.  "  I  groan  one  minute  with  pain,  and  shout 
glory  the  next,"  he  writes  in  the  summer  of  1814.  "I 
look  back,"  he  continues,  "upon  a  martyr's  life  of  toil 
and  privation  and  pain,  and  I  am  ready  for  a  martyr's 
death;  the  purity  of  my  intentions,  my  diligence  in  the 
labors  to  which  God  has  been  pleased  to  call  me,  the 
unknown  Bufferings  I  have  endured;  what  are  all  these? 
The  merit,  atonement,  and  righteousness  of  Christ  alone 
make  my  plea." 


286  HISTORY    OF    THE 


CHAPTER  VI. 

METHODISM   IN   THE   EASTERN   STATES,   1804-1820. 

Review  —  Lee  —  Aaron  Sandford — Ministerial  Recruits  —  Wilbur  Fisk 

—  Importance  of  his  Services  —  His  Character  —  Edward  T  Taylor, 
Mariners'  Preacher,  Boston  —  His  Romantic  History —  Joshua  Soule 

—  Elijah  Hedding —  His  Review  of  his  Itinerant  Life  —  George  Pick 
ering —  Martin  Ruter  —  Progress  of  the  Church. 

By  the  superior  supply  of  the  published  data  of  Meth- 
odism in  the  eastern  states  I  have  been  able,  thus  far, 
to  give  a  more  thorough  and  consecutive  record  of  that 
part  of  the  denomination  than  of  any  other ;  and  as  most 
of  its  representative  men,  for  the  ensuing  quarter  of  the 
century,  have  been  anticipated,  we  can  pass  rapidly 
over  the  remaining  outlines  of  our  narrative.  We  have 
seen  Lee  preaching  his  first  sermon  in  New  England, 
at  Norwalk,  Conn.,  on  the  17th  of  June,  1789;  organ- 
izing his  first  class,  or  society,  of  three  women,  Sep- 
tember 25,  at  Stratfield  ;  receiving  his  first  male 
member,  the  first  New  England  Methodist  layman, 
Aaron  Sanford,1  at  Reading,  December  28 ;  welcom- 
ing his  first  ministerial  reinforcement,  Jacob  Brush, 
George  Roberts,  and  Daniel  Smith,  February  27,  T.T90 ; 
delivering  his  first  sermon,  in  Boston,  on  its  Common,  iu 

1  Aaron  Sandford  was  worthy  of  this  peculiar  distinction.  He  was 
also  the  first  class-leader,  first  steward,  and  first  local  preacher  of  New 
England  Methodism.  He  and  his  wife's  sister,  Mrs.  Hawley,  were  the 
first  two  members  of  Lee's  second  class.  His  house  sheltered  the  way- 
worn itinerants  for  more  than  fifty  years.  "  Here,"  says  one  of  those 
who  long  knew  him,  "  the  itinerant  has  always  found  a  friend  and  a 
home ;  here  the  Christian  brother  has  always  found  a  kindly  reception, 
and  a  resting-place.    He  has  lived  to  see  the  work  of  God  spread  all 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHULCH.  '287 

July;  forming  the  first  class  o.'  Massachusetts,  at  Lynn, 
February  20,  1791,  and  dedicating  its  first  church  there 
June  20,  where  also  the  first  New  England  Conference 
was  held  August  3, 1 792.  We  have  followed  him,  through 
all  the  Xew  England  states,  even  to  the  remotest  points 
of  the  province  of  Maine,  and  taken  leave  of  him,  at 
the  conclusion  of  his  great  mission,  in  1800,  when, 
after  eleven  years  of  hardest  labor,  his  cause  was  per- 
manently established  in  every  eastern  state,  with  nearly 
six  thousand  members,  and  nearly  fifty  traveling  preach- 
ers. At  the  end  of  four  years  more,  when  we  last  sur- 
veyed the  hard-fought  field,  we  found  in  it  more  than 
ten  thousand  Methodists,  with  about  fifty  circuits,  and 
more  than  eighty  itinerants. 

The  present  period  (1804-1820)  opens  with  a  host  of 
able  men  in  the  eastern  itinerancy,  most  of  whose  names 
are  already  familiar  to  us:  Moriarty,  Crowell,  Craw- 
ford, Beale,  Brodhead,  Ruter,  Hedding,  Soule,  Ostran- 
der,  Washburn,  Pickering,  Kibby,  Jane,  Snelling, 
Webb,  Joshua  Taylor,  Monger,  Heath,  Hilman,  Mer- 
win,  Chichester,  Sabin,  Kent,  and  many  others.  Re- 
cruits, not  a  fewT  of  whom  have  survived  till  our  day, 
were  to  be  rapidly  added  to  the  ranks:  in  1804  Lewis 
Bates;  in  1806  Joel  Steele,  Caleb  Fogg,  Solomon  Sias; 
1807  Charles  Virgin,  Joseph  A.  Merrill;  1808  Isaac 
Bonney,  William  Swaze,  David    Kilburn  ;    1809  John 

around  him,  far  and  wide,  beyond  his  most  enlarged  expectations.  He 
bflfl  had  ten  children,  nine  of  whom  have  been  married,  and  he  has  had 
tin-  unspeakable  pleasure  of  seeing  them  all  converted  to  God,  and 
joined  to  the  same  Chureh  with  bimselC  Three  of  ln.s  children  have 
died  in  the  faith;  two  of  his  sons,  with  himself,  are  local  preaehers. 
He  has  about  a  dozen  grandchildren,  who  ore  members  of  the  Church, 
and  one  of  them  is  now  actively  engaged  in  the  itinerant  ministry." 
He  became  one  of  the  wealtbiesl  men  of  the  town,  Burvived,  with 
nearly  unimpaired  faculties,  beyond  bit)  ninetieth  year,  and  died  in  the 
peace  of  the  gospel,  in  Beading,  Conn.,  March  29, 


288  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Lindsey,  George  Gary,  Benjamin  R.  Hoyt,  Coles  Car- 
penter, Amasa  Taylor,  Ebenezer  F.  Newell,  Edward 
Hyde;  1811  Thomas  Norris,  Daniel  Fillmore;  1812 
Jacob  Sanborn,  John  Adams,  Thomas  Tucker,  Joseph 
Iveson ;  1813  Yan  Rensselaer  Osborn;  1814  Thomas  C. 
Pierce,  Bartholomew  Otheman  ;  1815  John  Lord,  Na- 
than Payne;  1816  Daniel  Dorchester,  Moses  Fifield ; 
and,  toward  the  close  of  the  period,  increasing  numbers 
of  familiar  names,  Jennison,  Wiley,  Hascall,  Fisk, 
Taylor,  Stoddard,  Horton,  Crandall,  Baker — a  bald  list 
of  names,  but  if  of  little  interest  to  the  general  reader, 
yet  all  of  them  mementoes  of  precious  memories  to  New 
England  Methodists.  Many  others  of  the  same  dates, 
and  of  hardly  less  importance,  could  be  added  ;  but,  like 
most  of  these,  their  historical  significance  belongs  to  a 
period  beyond  our  present  limits,  when  it  will  devolve 
upon  the  historian  to  show  that  not  a  few  of  the  hum- 
blest of  them  were  men  of  heroic  character,  whose  travels 
and  labors,  in  many  instances,  extended  through  half  a 
century,  and  from  Canada  to  Long  Island  Sound. 

The  appearance  of  Wilbur  Fisk  in  the  ministry  in 
1818,  may  be  said  to  have  dated  a  new  epoch  in  New 
England  Methodism.  A  man  of  intrinsic  greatness ; 
of  the  highest  style  of  Christian  character;  of  rare 
pulpit  eloquence,  full  of  grace,  dignity,  and  power, 
he  was  also  the  first  Methodist  preacher  of  the  eastern 
states  who  had  the  advantages  of  a  collegiate  education  ; 
a  fact  of  no  little  importance  among  the  people  of  New 
England.  No  man  did  more  to  redeem  his  Church  from 
the  imputation  of  ignorance,  not  to  say  the  contempt, 
with  which  it  had  been  branded  among  the  trained 
clergy  of  those  states ;  for,  notwithstanding  the  minis- 
terial competence  and  greatness  of  such  men  as  Merritt, 
Ruter,  Soule,  and  Hedding,  their  commission  had  been 

4 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH  289 

generally  discredited,  beyond  their  own  people,  ft  r  lack 
of  academic  diplomas.  Fisk  led  up  the  whole  Method- 
ism of  the  East  in  educational  enterprise,  ministerial 
culture,  and  public  inflaence;  while  his  saintly  life  pre- 
sented a  model  of  Christian  character,  which  impressed 
his  entire  denomination,  not  only  in  Xew  England,  but 
throughout  all  the  land,  for  his  usefulness  and  reputa- 
tion became  national. 

He  was  born  in  Brattleborough,  Vt.,  in  1792,a  joined 
the  Church  in  his  eleventh  year,  and  graduated  with  honor 
at  Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I.,  in  1815.  Like 
Emory,  he  abandoned  the  study  of  law  for  the  itinerant 
ministry,  in  1818,  when  he  was  sent  by  a  presiding  elder 
to  Craftsbury  Circuit,  Yt.  In  1819  and  1820  he  was 
stationed  at  Charlestown,  Mass.,  where  his  health  failed, 
and  he  was  reported  "supernumerary"  till  1823,  when 
he  took  charge  of  the  Vermont  District ;  but,  in  the 
third  year  of  his  presiding  eldership,  was  elected  prin- 
cipal of  the  Wesleyan  Academy,  Wilbraham,  Mass. 
In  1828  he  was  elected  bishop  of  the  Canada  Con- 
ference, but  declined  the  appointment  that  he  might 
mature  his  plans  of  Methodist  education  in  Xew  En- 
gland. In  1830  he  was  called  to  the  presidency  of  the 
We-leyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn.,  of  which  he 
was  one  of  the  founders.  In  1835  his  enfeebled  health 
compelled  him  to  make  a  voyage  to  Europe,  where  he 
officially  represented  American  Methodism  in  the  Wes- 
leyan Conference.  lie  was  elected  bishop  of  his  Chinch 
while  absent,  but  again  declined  the  episcopal  office  in 
favor  of  his  function  as  an  educator.  Returning,  he 
continued  his  labors  in  the  Wesleyan  University  with 
declining  health,  but  unabated  devotion,  till  his  death. 

2  Life  of  Wilbur  Fisk,  D.  D.,  etc.,  by  Ju=cph  lioldicb,  D.  D.,  p.  18 
.   >rk,  ls4J. 


290  HISTORY    OF    THE 

In  all  these  positions,  beyond  the  limits  of  our  present 
period,  the  history  of  the  Church  will  recognize  him  as 
one  of  the  principal,  if  not  indeed  the  principal  repre- 
sentative of  her  great  interests,  a  leader  in  her  General 
Conferences,  a  tireless  promoter  of  her  education,  mis- 
sions, and  literature,  an  invincible  defender  of  her  the- 
ology and  polity,  an  orator  in  her  pulpits  and  on  hei 
philanthropic  platforms,  a  saint  in  her  calendar. 

Wilbur  Fisk's  person  bespoke  his  character.  It  wa& 
of  good  size,  and  remarkable  for  its  symmetry.  His 
features  were  harmonious,  the  contour  strongly  resem 
bling  the  better  Roman  outline.  His  eye  was  nicely 
defined,  and,  when  excited,  beamed  with  a  peculiarly 
benign  and  conciliatory  expression.  His  complexion 
was  bilious,  and  added  to  the  diseased  indication  oi 
his  somewhat  attenuated  features.  His  head  was  a 
model  not  of  great,  but  of  well-proportioned  develop- 
ment. It  had  the  height  of  the  Roman  brow,  thougb 
not  the  breadth  of  the  Greek.3  His  voice  was  pe- 
culiarly flexible  and  sonorous.  A  catarrhal  disease 
affected  it;  but  just  enough,  during  most  of  his  life,  to 
improve  its  tone  to  a  soft  orotund,  without  a  trace  of 

3  The  two  portraits  of  biin  which  have  been  engraved  recall  his  ap- 
pearance well  enough  to  those  who  were  familiar  with  it,  but  cau 
hardly  afford  an  accurate  impression  to  such  as  never  saw  him.  One 
of  them,  presenting  him  in  the  primitive  ministerial  costume  of 
the  Church,  (which  he  doffed,  in  later  years,)  has  too  much  of 
the  languor  of  disease.  There  is  an  aspect  of  debility,  if  not  decay, 
about  it  which  did  not  belong  to  the  original,  notwithstanding  his 
habitual  ill-health.  It  is  preferred,  however,  by  many  of  his  friends 
to  the  second  engraving,  an  English  production,  marked  by  ideal  ex- 
aggerations, and  not  a  little  of  that  exquisite  and  unnatural  nicety 
with  which  Wesleyan  preachers  are  nattered  in  thei:  "Magazine"  por- 
traits. There  is  a  bust  of  him  extant ;  but  it  is  no*  to  be  looked  at  by 
any  who  would  not  mar  in  their  memories  the  beautiful  and  benign 
image  of  his  earlier  manhood  by  the  disfigurations  of  disease  and 
buffering. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHlRCil.         291 

nasal  defect.  It  rendered  him  a  charming  singer,  and 
was  an  instrument  of  music  to  him  in  the  pulpit.  With- 
out appearing  to  use  it  designedly  for  vocal  effect,  it 
was  nevertheless  an  important  means  of  impression  to 
his  sermons.  Few  men  could  indicate  the  moral  emo- 
tions more  effectually  by  mere  tones.  It  was  especially 
expressive  in  pathetic  passages. 

His  pulpit  manner  was  marked,  in  the  introduction  of 
the  sermon  by  dignity,  hut  dignity  without  ceremony 
or  pretension.  As  he  advanced  into  the  exposition  and 
argument  of  his  discourse,  (and  there  were  both  in  most 
of  his  sermons,)  he  became  more  emphatic,  especially  as 
brilliant,  though  brief  illustrations,  ever  and  anon, 
gleamed  upon  his  logic.  By  the  time  he  had  reached 
the  peroration  his  utterance  became  rapid,  his  thoughts 
were  glowing,  the  music  of  his  voice  rung  out  in  thrill- 
ing  tones,  and  sometimes  quivered  with  trills  of  pathos. 
Xo  imaginative  excitement  prevailed  in  the  audience  as 
under  A[affitt?s  eloquence,  no  tumultuous  wonder  as 
under  Bascom's,  none  of  C'ookman's  impetuous  passion, 
or  Olin's  overwhelming  power,  but  a  subduing,  almost 
tranquil  spell,  of  genial  feeling,  expressed  often  by  tears 
or  half  suppressed  ejaculations;  something  of  the  deep 
but  gentle  effect  of  Summerfield  combined  with  a  higher 
intellectual  impression. 

If  genius  cannot  be  claimed  for  him,  nor  the  very  high- 
est order  of  intellect,  yet  he  approached  both  so  nearly 
as  to  command  the  admiration  of  the  best  cultivated 
minds,  and  the  almost  idolatrous  interest  of  the  people. 
Good  vigor  in  all  his  faculties,  and  good  balance  of 
them  all,  were  his  chief  intellectual  characteristics.  IIi> 
literary  acquisitions  were  not  great.  The  American 
collegiate  course  in  his  day  was  stinted.  Attn-  his 
graduation  he  was  too  busy  t<>   study  much,  and  he 


292  HISTORY    OF    THE 

not  a  great  reader.  His  resources  were  chiefly  in  himself; 
in  his  good  sense,  his  quick  sagacity,  his  generous  sensi- 
bilities, and  his  healthy  and  fertile  imagination.  He 
possessed  the  latter  power  richly,  though  it  never  ran 
riot  in  his  discourses.  It  wTas  an  auxiliary  to  his  logic, 
an  exemplication  of  Dugald  Stewart's  remark  on  the 
intimate  relation  between  the  imagination  and  the  rea- 
soning faculty  in  a  well-balanced  mind.  Its  scintilla- 
tions were  the  sparkles  that  flew  about  the  anvil  on 
which  his  logic  plied  its  strokes.  His  sermons,  if  exam- 
ined in  print,  would  pass  for  good,  but  "  second-rate  " 
productions ;  that  is  to  say,  they  would  rank  below 
those  of  Chalmers,  Channing,  Robert  Hall,  or  Olin, 
not  to  speak  of  the  majestic  productions  of  the  great 
French  preachers ;  but  if  heard  from  his  own  lips  in  the 
pulpit,  the  hearer,  even  the  educated  and  critical  hearer, 
inspired  by  the  preacher's  manner  and  sensibility, 
would  be  disposed  to  assign  them  to  the  "  first "  class. 
His  style,  not  being  formed  from  books,  was  the  natural 
expression  of  his  vigorous  and  exact  intellect ;  it  was 
therefore  remarkable  for  its  simplicity  and  terseness, 
its  Saxon  purity  and  energy.  A  meretricious  sentence 
cannot  be  found  in  all  his  published  writings. 

He  was  not  a  metaphysician,  nor  a  dialectician,  and 
yet  by  natural  disposition  he  was  a  polemic.  This  was 
a  marked  propensity  of  his  mind ;  it  was  never  abused 
into  gladiatorship  in  the  pulpit,  but  inclined  him  al 
most  incessantly  to  theological  discussion  out  of  it.  A 
jealous  regard  for  the  truth  doubtless  prompted  it; 
but  it  had  a  deeper  foundation;  it  was  founded  in  his 
mental  constitution.  His  polemical  writings  were  not 
only  in  good  temper,  but  models  of  luminous  and 
forcible  argumentation.  His  sermon  on  Calvinism  may 
be  referred  to  as  an  example.     That  discourse,  writh  hi? 


METHOD  1ST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        293 

sermon  and  lectures  on  Universalism,  bis  essays  on  the 
New  Haven  Divinity,  his  sermon  on  the  Law  and  the 
Gospel,  his  tract  in  reply  to  Pierrepont  on  the  Atone- 
ment, etc.,  would  form  a  volume  which  the  Church 
might  preserve  as  no  ignoble  memorial  of  both  his  in- 
tellectual and  moral  character.  Ilis  Travels  in  Europe, 
though  containing  some  examples  of  elaborate  reflection 
and  picturesque  description,  was  not  a  volume  of  supe- 
rior claims ;  it  had  too  much  of  the  ordinary  guide-book 
character. 

That  very  significant  and  convenient  word,  tact,  ex- 
presses a  quality  which  Wilbur  Fisk  possessed  in  a  rare 
degree.  He  was  uncommonly  sagacious  in  perceiving, 
and  prompt  in  seizing  the  practical  advantages  of  his 
position,  whatever  it  might  be;  hence  his  adroitness  in 
controversy,  the  success  of  his  platform  addresses,  his 
almost  certain  triumph  in  Conference  debates,  and  the 
-kill  of  his  public  practical  schemes. 
#  His  moral  character  was  as  perfect  as  that  of  any  man 
whom  it  has  been  the  writer's  happiness  to  know.  Mis 
intimate  friends  will  admit  that  there  is  hardly  a  p 
bility  of  speaking  too  favorably  of  him  in  this  respect. 
It  has  often  been  remarked  by  those  who  had  years 
of  personal  relations  with  him,  that  they  were  literally 
at  a  los^  to  mention  one  moral  defect  that  marred  the 
perfect  beaut}-  of  his  nature.  This  is  saying  very  much; 
it  is  saying  what  cannot  be  >aid  of  one  man  perhaps  in 
a  million,  but  it  can  be  deliberately  said  of  this  Baintly 
man.  Serene,  cheerful ;  exempt  from  selfishness,  pride, 
and  vanity;  tender,  yet  manly  in  his  sensibilities;  con- 
tiding  in  his  friendships;  entertaining  hopeful  views  oi 
Divine  Providence  and  the  destiny  of  man  :  maintain- 
ing the  purest  and  yet  the  most  inelaborate  piety,  a 
piety  that  appeared  to  believe  and  enjoy  and  do  all  things 


294  HISTORY    OF    THE 

good,  and  yet  to  "  be  careful  for  nothing ;"  he  seemed 
to  combine  the  distinctive  charms  that  endear  to  us  the 
beautiful  characters  of  Fenelon  and  Channing,  Edwards 
and  Fletcher  of  Madeley.  His  humility  was  profound, 
and  surrounded  him  with  a  halo  of  moral  loveliness 
It  was  not  a  burden  of  penance  under  ^hich  the  soul 
bowed  with  self-cherished  agony,  still  less  was  it  a 
"  voluntary  humility,"  an  assumed  self-abasement ;  but 
it  seemed  the  spontaneous  and  tender  demeanor  of  his 
spirit ;  it  mingled  with  the  cheerful  play  of  his  features, 
and  gave  a  hallowed  suavity  to  his  very  tones.  It  was 
his  rare  moral  character,  more  even  than  his  intellectual 
eminence,  that  gave  him  such  magical  influence  over  other 
minds,  and  rendered  him  so  successful  in  the  govern- 
ment of  literary  institutions.  All  about  him  felt  self- 
respect  in  respecting  him.  To  offend  him  was  a  self- 
infliction  which  even  the  audacity  of  reckless  youth 
could  not  brook. 

He  lived  for  many  years  in  the  faith  and  exemplifica-^ 
tion  of  St.  Paul's  sublime  doctrine  of  Christian  perfec- 
tion. He  prized  that  great  tenet  as  one  of  the  most 
important  distinctions  of  Christianity.  His  own  ex- 
perience respecting  it  was  marked  by  signal  circum- 
stances, and  from  the  day  that  he  practically  adopted  it 
till  he  triumphed  over  death,  its  impress  was  radiant  on 
his  daily  life.  With  John  Wesley  he  deemed  this 
important  truth  —  promulgated,  in  any  very  express 
form,  almost  solely  by  Methodism  in  these  days — to  be 
one  of  the  most  solemn  responsibilities  of  his  Church, 
the  most  potent  element  in  the  experimental  divinity 
of  the  Scriptures.  In  his  earlier  religious  history  he 
had  felt  the  influence  of  those  temptations  which  have 
betrayed  so  manv  young  men  from  the  Methodist  min- 
istry  into    othei    communions,    where   better   worldly 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         295 

auspices,  rather  than  better  means  of  self-development 
or  usefulness,  were  to  be  found ;  but  when  he  received 
the  baptism  of  this  great  grace,  his  purified  heart  could 
not  sufficiently  utter  its  thankfulness  that  he  had  been 
providentially  kept  within  the  pale  of  a  Church  which 
clearly  taught  it.  This  alone  was  a  denominational 
distinction  sufficiently  important  to  be  set  off  against 
any  drawback  that  Methodism  might  present.  In 
a  letter  to  a  brother  clergyman  he  expressed,  with 
overflowing  feelings,  his  renewed  love  of  the  Church. 
"I  thank  God,"  he  said,  "  that  I  ever  saw  this  day.  I 
love  our  Church  better  than  ever.  How  glad  am  I  that 
I  never  left  it.''  There  are  two  periods  at  which  a 
Methodist  assuredly  feels  no  regret  for  his  connection 
with  the  denomination :  when  he  learns  by  experience 
what  is  the  meaning  of  its  inst  ructions  respecting  the 
highest  Christian  life,  and  when  death  dismisses  him 
from  its  communion  to  the  Church  triumphant. 

On  the  twenty  second  of  February,  1839,  in  the  forty- 
eighth  vear  of  his  a^e,  Wilbur  Fisk  received  that  dis- 
mission.  His  chamber  had  been  for  days  sanctified,  as 
it  were,  by  the  glory  of  the  Divine  Presence,  and  hifl 
broken  utterances  were  full  of  consolation,  and  triumph 
over  death.  M  Glorious  hope  ! "'  was  the  last  and  whis- 
pered expression  of  his  religious  feelings. 

Another  name  has  been  mentioned,  among  the  addi- 
tions to  the  New  England  ministry,  in  this  period, 
which  has  become  as  familiar  to  eastern  Metnodists  as 
that  of  FUk,  and  which  claims  here  further  attention, 
though  it  pertains  more  fully  to  sub-equent  dates  ol  the 
Church;  the  name  of  a  man  whose  lift-,  like  that  of  n<>t 
a  few  others  in  the  Methodist  itinerancy,  forces  upon 
the  historian  the  Buspicion,  not  to  say  the  discredit,  of 
writing  "romance"  rather  than  fact. 


296  HISTORY    OF    THE 

During  the  last  war  between  England  and  the  United 
States  lived,  in  an  obscure  suburb  of  the  city  of  Boston, 
a  poor  but  devoted  English  woman,  who,  having  lost 
her  husband  soon  after  her  emigration,  depended  for 
her  subsistence  on  the  earnings  of  her  needle.  Her 
neighbors  were  of  the  lowest  class,  ignorant  and  vicious. 
She  felt,  in  her  poverty  and  toils,  that  God  might  have 
cast  her  lot  in  these  unfavorable  circumstances  for  some 
good  purpose,  and  began  zealously  to  plan  for  the  re- 
ligious improvement  of  her  neighborhood.  Among 
other  means,  she  opened  her  small  front  room  several 
times  a  week  for  a  prayer-meeting,  and  procured  the 
aid  of  her  Methodist  associates  in  conducting  it.  Much 
of  the  good  seed  thus  scattered  with  a  faith  that  hoped 
against  hope,  and  in  a  soil  that  seemed  utterly  arid, 
produced  good  fruit.  Among  the  attendants  at  the 
evening  meeting  was  a  young  mariner,  with  an  intel- 
lectual eye,  a  prepossessing  countenance,  and  the  gen- 
erous susceptibilities  of  a  sailor's  heart.  Amid  the  cor- 
ruptions of  his  associates  he  had  been  noted  for  his 
temperance  and  excellent  disposition.  And  yet  this 
child  of  the  sea  had  been  a  wanderer  on  its  waves  from 
his  earliest  years.  He  could  scarcely  trace  the  tie  of  a 
single  family  relation  on  earth,  and  had  known  no  other 
friends  than  the  ever-varying,  but  true-hearted  compan- 
ionships of  the  forecastle.  A  natural  superiority  of 
head  and  heart  had  raised  him  above  the  moral 
perils  of  his  lot.  His  fine  traits  interested  much  the 
English  Methodist  and  her  religious  friends,  and  they 
could  not  see  why  God  would  not  make  some  use 
of  him  among  his  comrades.  He  had  received  no  edu- 
cation, but  could  read  imperfectly.  She  hoped  that 
Providence  would  in  some  way  provide  for  his  future 
instruction  ;    but  in  the  midst  of  her  anticipations  he 

d 


METHODIST    HP  I  SCO  PA  I.    CHURCH.  297 

was  suddenly  summoned  away  to  sea.  Tie  had  been 
out  but  a  short  time  when  the  vessel  was  seized  by  a 
British  ship,  and  carried  into  Halifax,  where  the  crew 
suffered  a  long  and  wretched  imprisonment. 

A  year  had  passed  away,  during  which  the  good 
woman  had  heard  nothing  of  the  young  mariner.  Her 
hopes  of  him  were  abandoned  as  extravagant,  in  view 
of  his  unsettled  mode  of  life,  and  its  peculiar  impedi- 
ments to  his  improvement.  Still  she  remembered  and 
prayed  for  him  with  the  solicitude  of  a  mother.  About 
this  time  she  received  a  letter  from  her  kindred  who 
had  settled  in  Halifax,  on  business  which  required  her 
to  visit  that  town.  While  there  her  habitual  disposi- 
tion to  be  useful  led  her,  with  a  few  friends,  to  visit  the 
prison  with  Tracts.  In  one  apartment  were  the  Ameri- 
can prisoners  ;  as  she  approached  the  grated  door  a 
voice  shouted  her  name,  calling  her  mother,  and  a  youth 
beckoned  and  leaped  for  joy  at  the  grate.  It  was  the  lost 
sailor  boy.  They  wept  and  conversed  like  mother  and 
.  and  when  she  left  she  gave  him  a  Bible,  his  future 
guide  and  comfort.  During  her  stay  at  Halifax  she 
constantly  visited  the  prison,  supplying  him  with 
religious  books,  and  clothing,  and  endeavoring,  by  her 
conversation,  to  strengthen  the  religious  impressions 
made  on  his  mind  in  Boston.  After  some  months  Bhe 
removed  to  a  distant  part  of  the  province,  and  for  years 
she  heard  nothing  more  of  the  youth. 

It  was  her  happiness  to  reside  again  in  Boston,  in 
advanced  life,  and  to  find  her  "sailor  boy"  the  chief  at- 
traction of  its  pulpit,  in  times  when  Ch  inning,  the  elder 
.  Wain  wright,  and  other  men  of  national  reputa- 
tion, were  its  ornament-.  Such  was  the  beginning  of 
the  long  and  eminent  ministry  ird  T.  Taylor,4  a 

<  Sk'  trl  ea  and  Inci  ? 


298  HISTORY    OF    THE 

man  whose  fame  for  genius  and  usefulness  became  general, 
whose  extraordinary  character  has  been  sketched  in  our 
periodicals,  and  the  books  of  transatlantic  visitors,5  as 
one  of  the  so-called  "  lions  "  of  the  city,  whom  a  distin- 
guished critic  has  pronounced  the  greatest  poet  of  the 
land,  though  unable  to  write  a  stanza;  and  a  mayor  of 
Boston  has  publicly  declared  to  be  a  more  effectual  pro- 
tector of  the  peace  of  the  most  degraded  parts  of  the 
city  than  any  hundred  policemen. 

In  a  spacious  and  substantial  chapel,  crowded  about 
by  the  worst  habitations  of  the  city,  he  delivered  every 
Sabbath,  for  years,  discourses  the  most  extraordinary, 
to  assemblies  also  as  extraordinary  perhaps  as  could  be 
found  in  the  Christian  world.  In  the  center  column  of 
seats,  guarded  sacredly  against  all  other  intrusion,  sat  a 
dense  mass  of  mariners — a  strange  medley  of  white,  black, 
and  olive — Protestant,  Catholic,  and  sometimes  pagan, 
representing  many  languages,  unable,  probably,  to  com- 
prehend each  other's  vocal  speech,  but  speaking  there 
the  same  language  of  intense  looks  and  flowing  tears. 
On  the  other  seats,  in  the  galleries,  the  aisles,  the  altar, 
and  on  the  pulpit  stairs,  crowded,  week  after  week,  and 
year  after  year,  (among  the  families  of  sailors,  and  the 
poor  who  had  no  other  temple,)  the  elite  of  the  city, 
the  learned  professor,  the  student,  the  popular  writer, 
the  actor,  groups  of  clergymen,  and  the  votaries  of 
fashion,  listening  with  throbbing  hearts  and  wet  eyes 
to  the  man  whose  chief  training  had  been  in  the  fore- 
castle, whose  only  endowments  were  those  of  grace  and 
nature,  but  whose  discourses  presented  the  strangest, 
the  most  brilliant  exhibition  of  sense,  epigrammatic 
thought,  pathos,  and   humor,  expressed  in  a  style  of 

5  See  the  American  Travels  of  Miss  Martineau,  Buckingham,  Miss 
Bremer,  Mrs.  Jameison,  and  Dhkcns 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         299 

singular   pertinency,  spangled   over  by  an  exhaustless 

variety  of  the  finest  images,  and  pervaded  by  a  spiritual 
earnestness  that  subdued  all  listeners;  a  man  who  could 
scarcely  speak  three  sentences,  in  the  pulpit  or  out 
of  it,  without  presenting  a  striking  poetical  image,  a 
phrase  of  rare  beauty,  or  a  sententious  sarcasm,  and 
the  living  examples  of  whose  usefulness  are  scattered 
over  the  seas. 

He  was  born  in  Richmond,  Va.,  about  1793;  entered 
the  American  naval  service  as  surgeon's  boy  in  his  child- 
hood ;  was  some  time  in  the  Spanish  navy  in  the  Mexi- 
can waters ;  served  again  in  the  American  navy  at  Xew 
Orleans;  went  to  Boston,  where  he  joined  a  privateer 
in  the  war  of  1812,  and  was  taken  prisoner  by  a  British 
frigate  while  pursuing  a  British  brig.  After  an  impris- 
onment of  six  months  he  returned  to  Boston,  and,  under 
the  ministrations  of  Hedding  and  Sabin,  began  his 
Methodist  career.  By  the  aid  of  the  Methodist  layman, 
Colonel  Binney,  he  had  three  months'  instruction  at 
New  Market  (X.  II.)  Seminary,  the  only  academic 
education  of  his  life. 

Hi-  name  appears  in  the  Minutes,  for  the  first  time,  in 
1819,  when  he  was  received  into  the  Xew  England 
Conference,  and  appointed  to  Scituate  Circuit,  among 
his  own  seafaring  people,  under  the  presiding  eldership 
of  Pickering;  it  embraced  seven  towns.  In  1820  he  was 
at  Falmouth  and  Sandwich;  in  L821  at  Sandwich  and 
Harwich;  1822  Harwich  and  Barnstable;  1823  Fairhaven 
Uid  New  Bedford;  1824  Marthas  Vineyard  ;  1825 
Milford;  L826  Bristol;  1-27  and  1828  Fall  River  and 
Little  Compton.  In  hi-  rapidly  changed  appointments 
he  had  a  good  initiation  to  the  labors  and  trial-  ,,!'  the 
itinerancy.  Hi-  extraordinary  and  somewhat  eccentric 
genius  had  attracted  great  congregations;  hut  he  had 
D_20  d 


300  HISTORY    OF    THE 

been  found  chiefly  useful  among  seamen ;  the  Church 
therefore,  with  its  usual  policy  of  placing  the  right 
man  in  the  right  place,  commissioned  him,  in  1829, 
as  chaplain  to  mariners  in  the  metropolis  of  New 
England.  His  impression  on  the  public  mind  of 
Boston  was  immediate  and  most  vivid.  The  high 
culture  of  many  of  its  citizens  fitted  them  the  better 
to  appreciate  the  unquestionable  genius  and  marvelous 
•loquence  of  the  uncultivated  preacher.  He  projected 
a  mariner's  Church,  and,  after  he  had  labored  hard  in 
other  parts  of  the  country  to  collect  funds  for  its 
erection,  the  people  of  Boston,  without  regard  to 
sectarian  distinctions,  took  it  in  hand,  completed  it, 
effectively  endowed  it,  and  gave  it  a  "  Mariner's 
Home,"  thus  securing  to  the  preacher  a  lifelong  sphere 
of  remarkable  power  to  which  the  Church  has  ever 
since  annually  appointed  him.6 

During  most  of  this  period,  down  to  1816,  when  he 
was  appointed  to  the  Book  Concern,  New  York,  Joshua 
Soule  was  the  chief  itinerant  in  Maine,  traveling,  in  the 
outset,  its  only  district,  which  comprehended  all  its 
Methodist  territory ;  with  Taylor,  Munger,  Heath,  Hil- 
man,  Baker,  Fogg,  Kibby,  Virgin,  Ruter,  Newell,  and 
similar  men  under  him.  The  whole  state  was  now 
resounding    with   the    sound    of  the    gospel   by   their 

«  A  Boston  Journal,  (Z.  Herald,  May  8,  1867,)  alluding  to  the  Meth- 
odist ministry  of  the  city,  says :  "  One  of  their  number  has  been  the 
center  of  more  idolatry  on  the  part  of  the  Areopagites  of  this  Athens, 
as  long  as  his  strength  allowed  him  to  preach,  than  any  of  their  own 
gods.  Horace  Mann  joins  in  with  Dr.  Channing  in  his  laudation;  and 
the  only  elaborate  eulogy  of  a  minister  ever  drawn  from  the  pen  of 
their  heresiarch,  Emerson,  was  paid  to  this  master  workman.  No 
name  in  this  city's  clerical  annals,  not  that  of  Cotton  Mather,  Matthew 
Byles,  Peter  Thacher,  or  Lyman  Beecher,  will  be  more  historic,  or 
more  justly  so,  for  wit,  imagination,  and  oratory,  the  highest  gifts  of 
intellect,  no  less  than  of  the  heart,  than  the  name  of  Edward  T 
Taylor." 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        301 

ministrations.  A  second  district  was  formed,  witli 
Portland  for  its  headquarters,  in  1806,  and  commanded 
by  Oliver  Beale,  a  saintly  man,  of  unwavering  zeal 
and  long-continued  services,  who  became  one  of  the 
principal  founders  of  the  Church  in  the  extreme 
East.  Soule's  single  district,  with  its  thirteen  cir- 
cuits, and  two  thousand  one  hundred  members,  be- 
came, by  the  end  of  the  period,  three  districts  and 
twenty-seven  circuits,  with  more  than  six  thousand 
members. 

Hedding  labored  during  these  times  in  Vermont,  Xew 
Hampshire,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  and  Maine, 
mostly  on  immense  districts,  which  extended  over 
Beveral  of  the  states.  About  midway  of  the  period  he 
thus  reviews  his  work:  "I  have  averaged  over  three 
thousand  miles'  travel  a  year,  and  preached  on  an  av- 
erage a  sermon  a  day  since  I  commenced  the  itinerant 
life.  During  that  period  I  have  traveled  circuits  and 
districts  that  joined  each  other,  through  a  tract  of 
country  beginning  near  Troy,  X.  Y.,  and  going  north 
into  Canada  ;  thence  east,  through  Vermont  and  Xew 
Hampshire;  and  thence  southerly,  through  Massachu- 
3,  lihode  Island,  and  Connecticut,  to  Long  Island 
Sound.  I  have  never  in  this  time  owned  a  traveling 
vehicle,  but  have  ridden  on  horseback,  except  occasion- 
ally in  winter,  when  I  have  borrowed  a  sleigh,  and  also 
a  tew  instances  in  which  I  have  traveled  by  public  con- 
veyance or  a  borrowed  carriage.  I  have  both  labored 
hard  and  fared  hard.  Much  of  the  time  I  have  done 
missionary  work  without  missionary  money.  Until 
utly  I  have  had  no  dwelling-place  or  home;  but,  as 
a  wayfaring  man,  lodged  from  night  to  night  where 
hospitality  and  friendship  opened  the  way.  In  most  of 
these  regions  the  Methodists  were  few,  and  compara- 

d 


302  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tively  poor.  I  was  often  obliged  to  depend  upon  poor 
people  for  food  and  lodging  and  horse  keeping,  and 
though  in  general  they  provided  for  me  cheerfully  and 
willingly,  yet  I  often  felt  that  I  was  taking  what  they 
needed  for  their  children,  and  that  my  horse  was  eating 
what  they  needed  for  their  own  beasts.  I  have  suf- 
fered great  trials  of  mind  on  this  account,  and  have 
traveled  many  a  day  in  summer  and  winter  without 
dinner,  because  I  had  not  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  that  I 
could  spare  to  buy  it.  Through  nearly  all  this  region 
there  existed  strong  prejudices  against  the  Methodists, 
which  greatly  hindered  their  influence  and  usefulness. 
The  principal  objection  was  on  account  of  their  doc 
trines.  They  were  regarded  by  many  as  heretics  in 
theology.  They  were  also  despised  and  ridiculed  on 
account  of  their  poverty.  The  Methodist  preachers 
were  often  represented  as  exceedingly  ignorant  and 
incompetent  men.  The  itinerant  system  was  also  an- 
other ground  of  objection.  The  circuit  preacher,  com 
ing  as  a  stranger  to  a  new  people,  would  often  find 
himself  beset  with  the  most  scandalous  reports  of 
crimes  and  shameful  acts,  which  it  was  alleged  he  had 
been  guilty  of  on  former  circuits,  and  thus  the  enemies 
of  Methodism  would  seek  to  undermine  his  influence 
and  destroy  his  usefulness.  Such  are  some  of  the  dif- 
ficulties the  Methodist  preachers  have  been  compelled 
to  encounter,  especially  in  New  England,  during  the 
past  ten  years.  But  notwithstanding  all,  God  has  been 
with  us,  and  given  us  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  people, 
and  great  success  in  building  up  his  Church.  Revivals 
have  spread  through  all  the  country,  and  multitudes 
have  been  added  to  the  little  and  despised  flock  ;  nay, 
many  who  were  once  the  greatest  enemies  of  Meth- 
odism,   and    especially    of   Methodist    preachers,    have 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  303 

been    converted,  and   are   now  become   their   greatest 
and  truest  friends. %1 7 

Pickering  labored  mostly  about  Boston,  and  on  the 
Boston  District  as  presiding  elder,  his  field  in  the  latter 
appointment  extending  from  the  end  of  Cape  Cod  to 
Providence,  R.  I.,  from  Marblehead  to  the  interior  of 
New  Hampshire  ;  Kibby,  Snelling,  Webb,  Plunger, 
Merwin,  Kent,  Hyde,  Merrill,  Sabin,  Brodhead,  Lindsey, 
and  many  more  such  men,  being  under  his  command. 
Ruter,  returning  from  his  Canadian  labors,  traveled  in 
Xew  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  and  Maine,  but  mostly 
in  Xew  Hampshire,  where  he  followed  Hedding  in 
1809,  on  a  district  so  large  that  it  bore  the  name  of  the 
state.  His  self-culture  was  a  remarkable  example  of  the 
"  acquisition  of  knowledge  under  difficulties,"  for,  with 
all  the  hardships  of  the  itinerancy,  he  had  now  become 
a  scholarly  man.  His  influence  was  important  in  pro- 
moting studious  habits  among  the  preachers,  and, 
toward  the  end  of  the  period,  he  helped  to  found  the 
first  Methodist  academy  of  Xew  England,  at  Newmar- 
ket, X.  H.,  and  became  its  first  principal.  The  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1820,  by  appointing  him  to  the  Book 
Concern,  Cincinnati,  closed  bis  Xew  England  career; 
thereafter  he  was  to  tend  westward,  continually  grow 
iug  in  eminence  as  a  preacher,  educator,  writer,  to  be 
crowned  at  last  by  death  as  a  pioneer  missionary  in  the 
farthest  southwest 

New  Hampshire's  single  district,  with  its  five  circuits, 
nine  preachers,  and  one  thousand  members  of  1804,  was 
to  double  all  it>  numerical  force  before  the  close  of  these 
years.     The  period  began  in  Vermont  with  some  live 

circuits,  seven  preacher-,  and  a  lew  BCattered    members, 

under  the  presiding  eldership  of  Joseph  ( Irawford,  whoie 

>  Bishop  Clark-.-  Lift  ol  Bedding,  p.  202.    New  fork,  1856. 

j 


304  HISTORY    OF    THE 

district  extended  into  Massachusetts,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  Canada  on  the  other.  It  closed  there  with  fully 
doubled  strength.8  The  two  districts  which  compre- 
hended the  earlier  occupied  fields  —  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut — at  its  beginning,  much 
more  than  doubled  all  their  statistics  by  its  close. 

8  Districts  and  circuits  of  New  York  Conference  extended  into  all 
Western  New  England,  and  render  it  next  to  impossible  to  estimate 
correctly  the  Methodist  statistics  of  the  latter. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHCRCH.        305 


CHAPTER  VIL 

ASBURY  AND  LEE  IN  THE  EAST. 

Asbury  in  the  East  — Hi?  Views  of  New  England  — At  Buxton  Con- 
ference, Maine  —  Great  Religious  Excitement — At  Lynn,  Mass. — 
Characters  uf  Pfeachere  —  Great  Revival  —  At  Canaan,  N.  H. —  Trav- 
els and  Labors  —  At  Bo-ton  —  The  First  Conference  there  —  At  New 
London,  Conn. — Increasing  Prosperity— '  Newport,  R.  L  —  Captain 
Beale — At  Bo-ton  —  Conference  at  Monmouth,  Me. — At  Pitts- 
field,  M&3S.  —  At  Winchester,  N.  H.  —Lee  Revisits  the  East  — Scenes 
on  his  Route  — Final  Views  of  New  England  Methodism  —  Deaths 
of  Preachers  —  Statistical  Progress. 

Asbuey  traversed  New  England  each  of  these  years 
down  to  the  last  before  that  of  his  death,  lie  always 
approached  it  with  peculiar  feelings ;  with  mingled  re- 
pugnance and  hopefulness.  He  seemed  there  as  in  a  for- 
eign land,  while  all  the  rest  of  the  nation  was  his  familiar 
domain.  Everywhere  el  so  he  was  welcomed  by  enthu- 
siastic throngs ;  there  he  was  repelled,  and  pursued  his 
solitary  journies  comparatively  a  >t  ranger,  finding  refuge 
in  families  which  were  proscribed  as  heretical  by  public 
opinion,  and  in  "meetings"  which  were  impeached  as 
fanatical  u  conventicles."  Yet  he  believed  that  Meth- 
odism would  "radiate"  over  these  elder  communities. 
"I  feel,"  he  writes,  "as  if  God  will  work  in  these  stales 
and  give  us  a  great  harvest ;  a  glorious  work  of  God 
will  be  wrought  here.  Surely  we  shall  rise  in  New 
'land  in  the  next  generation."  He  lived  to  see  the 
verification  of  his  prediction.  To  him  the  religious  life 
of  New  England  presented  an  example  of  the  rigid 
Hebrew  legalism,  strangely  combined  with  the  specula- 


306  HISTORY     OF    THE 

tive  dogmatism  of  the  early  Greek  Church,  but  unre- 
lieved by  the  spiritual  mysticism  of  the  latter,  and 
nearly  destitute  of  the  vital  charity  and  joyousness 
of  the  primitive  faith.  Its  distinctive  theology  he 
literally  detested ;  it  seemed  to  him  to  bind,  as  in 
iron  bands,  the  souls  of  the  people ;  depressing,  by  its 
tenets  of  election  and  reprobation,  with  uncomplaining 
but  profound  distress,  scrupulous,  timid,  and  therefore 
often  the  best  consciences ;  inflating  the  confidence  and 
pharisaism  of  the  self-reliant  or  self-conceited,  who  as- 
sumed their  predestination  to  heaven ;  enforcing  the 
morality  without  the  gracious  consolation  of  religion ; 
and  giving  to  the  recklessly  immoral  an  apology  for 
their  lives  in  their  very  demoralization,  their  lack  of 
"  effectual  grace,"  of  "  an  effectual  call."  DeVTmt  Augus- 
tinian  theologians  would  not  indeed  admit  his  logic; 
such  was  nevertheless  his  honest  estimate  of  the 
New  England  Church,  and  he  continually  returned 
to  the  East,  directing  the  best  energies  of  Meth- 
odism against  its  traditional  beliefs  and  ecclesiastical 
stagnancy. 

There,  more  than  anywhere  else,  we  have  to  regret 
the  scantiness  of  his  journals,  for  there,  in  his  hardest 
field,  his  reflections  as  well  as  his  facts  would  be  most 
interesting  to  us.  He  re-entered  it  in  the  spring  of 
1804,  and  on  the  fourteenth  of  July  opened  the  New 
England  Conference  at  Buxton,  Me.  The  ordination 
was  held  in  a  wood,  where  the  bishop  preached  from 
a  haycart.  He  describes  the  occasion  as  "an  open 
time."  "  The  work  of  God  broke  forth,"  he  says, 
"on  the  right  and  on  the  left."  A  great  sensation 
spread  among  the  multitude,  and  before  the  session 
closed  it  was  estimated  that  fifty  persons  were  con- 
verted.     Snelling  says,  "  There  was  a  greater  display 

i 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH.         ol>7 

of  divine  power  at  this  Conference  than  any  I  ever 
attended.  Many  of  the  people  were  wrought  upon  in  a 
very  powerful  manner;  but,  as  is  generally  the  case, 
there  was  some  opposition.  At  one  meeting  a  man, 
appearing  to  be  in  a  violent  passion,  came  in,  and  called 
for  his  wife,  bidding  her  leave  immediately.  She  urged 
him  to  stay  a  little  longer.  ' Xo,'  said  he;  Met  us  go.' 
He  then  started  to  go,  but  paused  a  few  moments, 
then  turned  back,  fell  upon  his  knees,  and  prayed  for 
mercy  as  earnestly  as  any.  The  preachers  were  placed 
in  diiferent  directions  in  the  grove,  praying  and  exhort- 
ing. The  people  would  gather  around  them  in  com- 
panies, similar  to  what  are  called  praying  circles  at 
camp-meetings.  In  the  circle  which  I  was  in  there  were 
eleven  persons  who  professed  to  be  brought  from  dark- 
ness to  light,  besides  many  others  who  were  inquiring 
what  they  must  do  to  be  saved."1  "It  was,"  wrote 
Joshua  Taylor,  "  the  greatest  time  that  we  have  seen  in 
Xew  England." 

Eight y-one  preachers  were  appointed  to  six  districts 
and  fifty-two  circuits.  They  had  gained  in  the  last  year 
one  di>trict  and  four  circuits.  The  ensuing  year  was 
prosperous,  and  gave,  at  the  next  Conference,  an  aggre- 
of  eight  thousand  five  hundred  and  forty,  an  in- 
crease of  seven  hundred  and  sixteen.  If  we  add  the 
returns  of  Xew  England  circuits  which  belonged  to  the 
New  York  Conference,  the  total  membership  of  the 
Eastern  states  amounted  to  ten  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  fifty-two,  with  a  gain  of  four  circuits  and  seven 
preachers, 

Asbury  was  back  again,  at  the  Conference  of  July  12, 
1805,  in  Lynn,  Mass.  Nearly  fifty  preachers  were 
[•resent.  The  records  of  thi-  >e>sion  afford  abundant 
1  Memorials,  etc.,  second  series,  p.  201. 


808  HISTORY    OF    THE 

evidence  of  the  vigilance  of  the  Conference  over  its 
members.  The  notices  appended  to  the  names  which 
passed  under  review  are  remarkable  for  their  brevity, 
but  also  for  their  frankness.  One  candidate  is  pro- 
nounced "useful,  firm,  perhaps  obstinate,  contentious, 
well  meaning."  Another  is  said  to  be  "useful,  but 
unguarded  in  some  expressions ;"  he  seems  to  have 
been  somewhat  in  advance  of  his  times,  for  there  was 
"some  objection  on  his  denial  of  visions  and  spiritual 
influences  by  dreams,"  though  he  "averred  his  firm 
belief  of  the  Scriptures  in  these  respects."  Another  is 
said  to  be  "  unexceptionable,  useful,  and  devout ;"  an- 
other, "pious,  unimproved,  impatient  of  reproof,  not 
acceptable,"  and  is  ordered  to  "  desist  from  traveling." 
One  is  recorded  to  be  "sick,  near  to  death,  happy." 
Another  is  charged  gravely  for  marrying  indiscreetly, 
and  "  suspended  one  year  from  performing  the  functions 
of  a  deacon  ;"  another  is  pronounced  "  weak  in  doctrine 
and  discipline,  but  as  a  preacher  useful,  sincere,  pious." 
Bates  is  said  to  be  "  plain,  good,  useful ;"  Lyon,  "  pious, 
faithful,  but  of  small  improvement ;"  Young,  "  pious, 
capable,  rough,  improving;"  Willard,  "faithful,  dili- 
gent." One  is  said  to  be  "  acceptable,  useful,  zealous  — 
perhaps  indiscreetly  so — sincere,  ingenious ;"  another 
"  pious,  useful,  weak." 

Asbury  says :  "  We  had  a  full  Conference ;  preach- 
ing at  five,  at  eleven,  and  at  eight  o'clock;  sitting  of 
Conference  from  half  past  eight  o'clock  until  eleven  in 
the  forenoon,  and  from  two  until  six  in  the  afternoon. 
We  had  great  order  and  harmony,  and  strict  discipline 
withal.  Sixteen  deacons  and  eight  elders  were  or- 
dained." 

The  Sabbath,  as  usual  at  the  early  Conferences,  was  a 
day  of  extraordinary  interest.    A  great  multitude  assem- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH. 

oled  from  the  surrounding  regions.  The  public  exer- 
cises were  held  in  a  grove  belonging  to  Benjamin 
Johnson,  the  first  Methodist  of  Lynn ;  "  a  beautiful 
sequestered  spot,''  says  Asbury,  "though  near  the 
meetinghouse."  The  bishop  preached,  with  much 
effect,  from  1  Thess.  ii,  6-9,  a  passage  which  appositely 
described  the  Methodist  ministry:  "  Xor  of  men  sought 
we  glory,  neither  of  you,  nor  yet  of  others,  when  we 
might  have  been  burdensome,  as  the  apostles  of  Christ. 
But  we  were  gentle  among  you,  even  as  a  nurse  cher- 
ishes her  children ;  so,  being  affectionately  desirous  of 
you,  we  were  willing  to  have  imparted  unto  you,  not 
the  gospel  of  God  only,  but  also  our  own  souls,  because 
ye  were  dear  unto  us,"  etc.  A  remarkable  impression 
wa>  produeed  by  these  services.  "There  were,"  says 
Asbury,  "  many  exhortations  and  much  prayer.  From 
thi-  day  forth  the  work  of  God  will  prosper  in  Lynn 
and  its  neighborhood."  Old  Methodists  in  the  vicinity 
long  recalled  that  interesting  day.  It  is  said  that  the 
multitudes  bowed  under  the  force  of  the  word  like  the 
forest  before  the  tempest.  Scores  were  awakened ; 
many  fell  to  the  earth  overpowered  by  their  emotions, 
and  the  preachers  were  summoned  late  at  night  from 
their  sleep  to  console  and  counsel  those  who,  with 
broken  and  contrite  hearts,  continued  to  call  upon  God 
at  their  homes.2  On  Monday  '-the  labors  of  Conference 
and  public  religious  exercises  were  continued,"  writes 
the  bishop ;  "  on  Tuesday  evening  Conference  rose  in 
great  peace.  On  Wednesday  I  gave  them  a  sermon, 
and  immediately  set  out  for  Waltham,  twenty  miles ; 
wind,  heat,  dust."  He  passed  on  rapidly  to  New 
R  helle,  where  he  "lodged  under  the  hospitable  roof 
of  the  Widow  Sherwood, "'  one  of  his  most  favorite 
*  Bishop  Ht-ddin^  to  the  author. 


810  HISTORY    OF    THE 

homes.  He  had  traveled  two  hundred  and  thirty  miles 
in  six  days.  "I  am  still,"  he  writes,  "bent  on  great 
designs  for  God,  for  Christ,  for  souls."  Pursuing,  with 
unslacking  energies,  these  "  great  designs,"  he  again 
passes  from  our  view,  on  his  route  westward  as  far  as 
Tennessee,  and  southward  as  far  as  Georgia. 

But  in  May  of  1806  he  is  proclaiming  the  word 
again  in  New  Haven.  With  daily  preaching  he  reaches 
Boston,  and  rejoices  to  see  its  second  Methodist  church 
(on  Bromfield-street)  nearly  built,  "  sixty-four  by  eighty- 
four  feet ;"  "  the  upper  window  frames  put  in."  By  the 
fifth  of  June  he  is  at  a  camp-meeting  at  Buxton,  Me. 
"At  two  o'clock  we  came  on  the  ground,"  he  writes; 
"  there  were  twenty  preachers,  traveling  and  local. 
Saturday,  6,  I  preached,  and  on  Sunday  also.  Some 
judged  there  were  about  five  thousand  people  on  the 
ground.  There  were  displays  of  divine  power,  and 
some  conversions.  Our  journey  into  Maine  has  been 
through  dust  and  heat,  in  toil  of  body,  and  in  extraor- 
dinary temptation  of  soul ;  but  I  felt  that  our  way  was 
of  God."  On  Wednesday,  11,  he  arrived  at  Canaan, 
N.  H.,  where  the  New  England  Conference  commenced 
its  session  the  next  day.  About  forty-four  members 
were  present,  besides  probationers  and  visitors.  The 
Conference  comprised  more  than  half  a  hundred  preach- 
ers, and  presented  an  aspect  not  only  of  numerical,  but 
of  no  little  moral  and  intellectual  strength.  It  included 
several  men  of  force  and  talent,  among  whom  were 
Hedding,  Soule,  Pickering,  Ostrander,  Brodhead,  Jayne, 
Webb,  Sabin,  and  Ruter.  Asbury  says :  "  We  went 
through  our  business  with  haste  and  peace,  sitting  seven 
hours  a  day."  Their  financial  accounts,  at  all  these 
early  sessions,  show  that  most  of  them  received  but  a 
small  proportion  of  their  meager  "  allowance."     The 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  311 

"deficiencies'"  were  reported,  and  they  were  fearful.  A 
small  dividend  from  the  Book  Concern,  and  a  smaller 
one  from  the  "Chartered  Fund,"  gave  them  slight  relief. 
Fear  after  year  "a  donation"  from  the  Baltimore  Con- 
ference, usually  its  entire  dividend  from  the  Book 
Concern,  is  recorded  as  sent  on  in  the  hands  of  Asfomy. 
That  generous  Conference  had  given  the  first  itinerants 
to  the  Ea-t.  had  continued  to  reinforce  them  from  its 
best  men,  and  now  shared  with  them,  from  year  to  year, 
anty  financial  resources. 

"  On  Sunday,  15,  I  ordained,"  says  Asbury,  "eleven 
elders  in  the  woods.  At  three  o'clock  I  preached  in  the 
meeting-house ;  it  was  a  season  of  power."  The  next 
day  he  was  on  his  route  westward.  He  was  at  Bur 
lington,  Vt..  on  Saturday,  after  a  ride,  during  the  day, 
of  forty  miles.  "  I  am  resolved,"  he  there  wrote,  "  to 
be  in  every  part  of  the  work  while  I  live,  to  preside.  I 
feel  as  if  I  was  fully  taught  the  necessity  of  being  made 
perfect  through  sufferings  and  labors.  I  pass  over  in 
silence  cases  of  pain  and  grief  of  body  and  mind.  On 
the  Sabbath  I  preached  in  an  upper  room  at  Fuller's,  to 
about  four  hundred  people.  My  subject  was  Luke  iv, 
18,  19.  and  God  bore  witness  to  his  own  word.  Why 
did  I  not  visit  this  country  sooner?  Ah,  what  is  the 
t<»il  of  beating  over  rocks,  hills,  mountain-,  and  deserts, 
five  thousand  mile-  a  year?  Nothing,  when  we  reflect 
it  i-  (haie  for  God.  for  Christ,  for  the  Church  of  God, 
the  souls  of  poor  sinners,  the  preachers  of  the  gospel 
in    the    -even    Conference  -.  hundred    and    thirty 

thousand  members,  and  one  or  two  million-,  who  oon- 
_  2  with  us  in  the  solemn  worship  of  God;  O  it  IS 
nothing  !  " 

On  .Monday  Ik-  was  again  away.  II«  preached  at 
:«!  B  rid  port  during  the  day.  and  at  Flamp 


312  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

ton  the  day  following.  Sabbath,  the  28th,  he  spent  at  a 
eamp-meeting  in  Sharon,  Conn.,  the  results  of  which  he 
speaks  of  as  important.  "  We  had,"  he  writes,  "  abund- 
ant spiritual  harvests.  Glory  to  God  ! "  On  July  2, 
he  reached  New  York  city.  He  had  been  accom- 
panied through  New  England  by  Joseph  Crawford, 
"  who  now,1'  he  says,  "  came  over  the  ferry  with  me. 
When  about  to  part  he  turned  away  his  face  and  wept. 
Ah,  T  am  not  made  for  such  scenes  !  I  felt  exquisite 
pain."  This  strong  man,  armed,  carried  under  his 
cuirass  of  strength  the  sensitive  affections  of  a  child. 

New  England  now  had  eight  districts  and  part  of  a 
ninth,  sixty-four  circuits  and  stations,  and  ninety-seven 
preachers.  It  had  gained  in  a  year  two  districts,  eight 
circuits,  and  nine  preachers. 

Tn  May,  1807,  Asbury  entered  the  East  again  by  way 
of  Vermont,  accompanied  now  by  Daniel  Hitt  as  his 
traveling  companion.  They  pressed  forward  into  Maine, 
and  thence  southward  to  Boston,  where,  on  the  first  of 
June,  he  met  the  Conference.  It  sat  through  the  whole 
week,  and  was  the  first  session  in  the  New  England 
metropolis ;  a  bold  attitude  for  the  struggling  cause  in 
its  combined  ministerial  strength.  It  had  noAV  two 
Churches  in  the  city,  and  more  than  a  hundred 
preachers  and  about  thirteen  thousand  members  in 
the  eastern  states.  It  had  gained  one  thousand  two 
hundred  members  the  last  year.  The  Conference  had 
reaching  five  times  a  day,  and  fifty-nine  candidates 
were  ordained  at  the  two  humble  Boston  altars.  It 
was  a  prophetic  week  for  New  England.  Baltimore 
again  sends  three  hundred  dollars,  her  Book  Concern 
dividend,  for  the  suffering  itinerants,  for,  though  grow- 
ing vigorously  every  year,  they  are  still  poor  in  money. 
After  all  collected  funds  and  donations  are  handed  in, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         313 

the  Conference  is  nearly  three  thousand  dollars  in- 
solvent. 

On  Saturday  Asbury  refreshed  them  by  reading  let- 
ters from  Delaware  and  Virginia,  giving  accounts  of 

c  Jo  o 

remarkable  revivals  in  those  sections  of  the  Church. 
The  business  of  the  session  was  then  concluded,  and 
11  an  hour  or  two  was  spent  in  conversing  on  the  state 
of  the  Lord's  work  among  the  people  under  our  charge, 
and  our  own  souls,"  says  the  secretary.  Asbury  read 
the  appointments,  and  the  itinerants  were  the  same  day 
pursuing  their  way  on  horseback,  some  in  groups,  some 
alone,  to  their  scattered  posts  of  labor.  The  bishop 
immediately  departed  for  "  the  pleasant  town  of  Lynn,'' 
where  he  preached  on  the  Sabbath.  On  Monday  he 
shook  hands  with  his  TValthara  friends  at  the  home  of 
Bemis,  but  was  away  the  same  day.  On  Tuesday  he 
reached  Wilbraham,  "  in  spite  of  heat  and  lameness." 
"  I  am  in  peace,"  he  writes ;  "  I  dare  not  murmur, 
though  in  pain."  On  Tuesday,  12,  he  wTas  on  Pittsfield 
Circuit.  "  Methodism,"  he  writes,  "  prevails  in  this 
quarter.  In  two  societies  two  hundred  members  have 
been  added."  On  Saturday,  by  "  a  great  ride  of  forty 
miles,"  he  entered  the  state  of  Xew  York  "  faint,  sick, 
and  lame,"  his  "feet  much  swelled,"  and  he  can  walk 
only  "on  crutches."  Thus  he  pressed  on  in  his  course 
over  the  continent,  aged  and  debilitated,  but  advancing 
daily. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  1808  he  returned  to  Xew  York, 
iftei  a  fatiguing  tour  in  the  South,  and  more  than  five 
thousand  miles  travel  within  the  preceding  twelve 
months.  "O  my  soul,  rest  in  God  !  "  he  exclaims  aa  he 
journeys  onward.  "  I  hear  and  Bee  and  feel  many 
serious  things;  but  I  must  take  care  of  my  own  bouL 
My  ran.-  is  to  love,  to  suffer,  and  to  please  God."     lie 


d  14:  HISTORY    OF    THE 

arrived,  by  forced  rides,  on  Friday,  15th  of  April,  at 
New  London,  (Jonn.  "My  last  two  days'  rides,"  he 
remarks  the  next  day,  "  were  severe.  My  flesh  is  not 
brass,  nor  my  old  bones  iron ;  but  I  was  in  peace  and 
communion  with  the  Father  and  the  Son."  On  Sunday 
he  preached  in  the  Baptist  chapel ;  it  was  more  capa- 
cious than  the  Methodist  house,  and  the  Church  which 
occupied  it  very  generously  exchanged  it  for  the  latter. 
The  session  began  on  Monday,  the  eighteenth,  with 
forty  preachers,  besides  the  probationers.  There  is  no 
account  extant  of  the  financial  affairs  of  the  Conference. 
A  brief  allusion  in  the  records  indicates  that  Asbury 
brought  the  usual  donation  from  Baltimore.  Doubtless 
the  deficit  was  as  great,  if  not  greater,  than  heretofore, 
for  Martin  Ruter  *'  draughted  an  address  to  the  brethren 
requesting  their  charity  for  the  distressed  traveling 
preachers."  Asbury  says:  "The  Conference  sat  till 
Friday.  We  wrought  in  haste,  in  great  order,  and  in 
peace,  through  a  great  deal  of  business.  There  were 
seventeen  deacons,  traveling  and  local,  ordained,  and 
nine  elders  ordained  in  the  Congregational  Church 
before  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  witnesses.  I 
know  not  where  large  congregations  are  so  orderly  as 
in  the  Eastern  States.  There  was  a  work  of  God  going 
on  during  the  sitting  of  the  Conference.  The  General 
Conference  hastened  our  breaking  up,  the  delegates 
thereto  requesting  leave  to  go.  There  were  deficiencies 
in  money  matters,  but  no  complaints."  The  bishop  de- 
parted immediately  after  the  adjournment.  On  Tues 
day,  26,  after  a  ride  of  thirty-eight  miles  in  a  rain-storm, 
he  arrived  in  New  York  city.  "  I  feel,"  he  writes,  "  my 
shoulders  eased  a  little  now  that  I  have  met  the  seven 
Conferences.  I  have  lived  to  minute  five  hundred  and 
fifty  two  preachers  in  this  country.     The  increase  this 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  315 

short  year  is  seven  thousand  five  hundred  members  in 
round  numbers." 

The  ensuing  year  was  one  of  great  success,  though  of 
some  local  drawbacks.  In  Maine  Joshua  Soule  and 
Oliver  Beale  guided,  with  much  success,  the  labors  of 
twenty-two  itinerants,  among  whom  were  Hillman, 
Monger,  Cobb,  Martin,  Steele,  Kilburn,  and  Fogg. 
They  added  two  circuits  to  their  already  extensive 
field,  and  more  than  four  hundred  members  to  their 
classes.  The  joint  returns  of  the  two  districts  of  the 
province  amounted  to  three  thousand  two  hundred  and 
twenty-four.  Elijah  Hedding  concluded  his  labors  this 
year  on  the  New  Hampshire  District,  where  he  had 
superintended  the  travels  of  William  Hunt,  Lewis 
Bates,  Ebenezer  Blake,  and  others.  They  passed 
through  severe  struggles  and  privations,  and  made  no 
remarkable  progress.  The  gains  of  the  district  fell 
short  of  fifty.  An  additional  circuit  had,  however, 
been  formed. 

Elijah  R.  Sabin  superintended  the  New  London  Dis- 
trict with  success.  Bonney,  Lambord,  Washburn, 
Clark,  and  some  seven  others,  traveled  under  his  super- 
vision. They  reported  a  membership  of  one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  eighty-five,  and  had  increased  more 
than  three  hundred  during  the  year.  The  session  of  the 
Conference  at  Xew  London  left  a  deep  impression  upon 
that  city.  A  "reformation"  ensued,  which  lasted  through 
most  of  the  year,  and  spread  over  much  of  the  district. 
John  Brodhead  had  charge  of  nearly  a  score  of  laborers 
on  Boston  District,  among  whom  were  Pickering,  (who 
traveled  this  year  as  a  missionary,)  Webb,  Rater,  .Mer- 
rill, Kibby,  and  Menvin.  They  enlarged  their  field  on 
every  hand,  and  returned  two  thousand  and  forty-five 
members,  an  increase  during  the  year  of  four  hundred 
D-21  * 


816  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  sixty-one.  There  were  now  three  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  Methodists  in  the  metropolis.  On  Ash- 
grove  and  Rhinebeck  Districts  there  were  also  large 
additions.  Almost  every  circuit  reported  gains.  The 
membership  of  the  New  England  Conference  proper 
amounted,  at  the  close  of  the  year,  to  10,096;  it  had 
advanced  1,271  since  the  previous  returns.  If  we  add 
the  returns  of  the  New  England  circuits  pertaining  to 
the  New  York  Conference,  the  aggregate  number  of 
Methodists  in  the  eastern  states,  exclusive  of  the  preach- 
ers, amounted  to  15,798,  and  the  aggregate  increase  of 
the  year  to  1,968,  the  largest  gain  of  any  one  year  since 
the  introduction  of  Methodism  into  New  England. 

Accompanied  by  Henry  Boehm,  Asbury  was  again  in 
the  East  in  May,  1809.  On  Monday,  the  18th,  he  was 
at  Norwalk,  Conn.,  where  he  preached,  and  stirred  up 
the  young  Church  to  build  a  chapel.  They  were 
"poor,"  it  was  alleged.  "Poor  may  they  ever  be," 
was  his  reply.  "  I  must  needs  preach  in  New  London. 
I  gave  them  a  discourse  on  1  John  ii,  6.  The  house 
was  soon  filled,  and  many  went  away  who  could  not 
get  m ;  surely  the  society,  and  preachers  too,  have  been 
blind  to  their  own  interests,  or  they  would  have  occu- 
pied every  foot  of  ground ;  but  we  have  never  taken 
advantage  of  circumstances  as  they  offered  in  this  place, 
and  have  lost  by  our  negligence.  We  crossed  Narra- 
ganset  Bay  on  Friday,  and  came  into  Newport.  Grand 
house,  steeple,  pews,  by  lottery ;  the  end  is  to  sanctify 
the  means.  Ah,  what  pliability  to  evil !"  He  dreaded 
such  innovations  in  Methodism.  "I  spoke,"  he  adds^ 
"  with  difficulty,  and  with  little  order  in  my  discourses. 
From  New  York  thus  far  we  have  had  dust  and  rough 
roads,  and  I  have  been  much  tired  and  greatly  blessed. 
We  have  rode  two  hundred  miles  in  six  days."     The 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  317 

next  day  lie  visited  Capt.  Beale,  at  Fort  Wolcott.  The 
captain  was  a  good  Methodist,  and  one  of  the  chief 
founders  of  tbe  society  in  Newport.  Asbury  preached 
to  his  garrison,  "baptized  some  children,  visited  the 
school,  prayed  with  the  sick  in  the  hospital,  exhorted 
the  poor  sinners  to  turn  to  God;  but  ah,  I  might  have 
said  and  done  more.  Here  I  saw  discipline,  order,  cor- 
rectness ;  it  was  grand  and  pleasing.  What  changes  I 
pass  through  !  How  hardly  shall  they  who  travel  much 
keep  a  constant  eye  on  duty,  the  cross,  holiness,  and 
God  !  "  He  pushed  on,  rejoicing  at  many  indications  of 
prosperity,  but  lamenting  also,  with  perhaps  unfounded 
apprehension,  over  what  he  deemed  evidences  of  declen- 
sion. "On  Tuesday,  30,"  he  writes,  "we  came  to  the 
pleasant  town  of  Bristol.  The  Methodists  here  have  a 
h  inse  with  pews,  and  a  preacher  who  has  not  halt' 
enough  to  do.  Poor  work!  I  gave  them  a  discourse 
on  1  Cor.  xv,  58.  I  have  as  much  as  I  can  bear  in  body 
and  mind.  I  see  what  has  been  doing  for  nine  years 
past  to  make  Presbyterian  Methodists." 

On  Saturday  he  reached  Boston,  and  the  next  day, 
though  too  feeble  to  stand  in  the  pulpit,  he  preached 
twice.  "Had  I  not,"  he  says,  "spoken  sitting,  pain 
and  weariness  would  have  prevented  my  finishing. 
May  the  Lord  water  his  own  word!  I  hear  of  a  con- 
siderable revival  in  several  places."  On  Monday  he 
reached  the  mansion  of  Bemis,  at  Waltham,  "dripping 
wet."  "I  fuind,"  he  writes,  "the  four  generations  in 
nealth,  and  I  got  (O  how  sweet  !)  a  comfortable  night's 
sleep,  the  first  I  have  had  for  many  nights."  By  Thurs- 
day, the  15th  of  .June,  he  had  arrived  at  Monmouth, 
Me.,  where,  on  that  day.  he  opened  the  N«-w  England 
Conference.  M'Kendree  was  present,  but  we  have  no 
notice   of  the   share   he  took  in   the  proceedings.     On 


318  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Monday,  June  19th,  the  session  closed  committees,  of 
which  there  were  yet  but  two  or  three,  reported,  and 
the  devoted  hand  of  itinerants,  about  again  to  scatter  to 
all  parts  of  their  widely-extended  field,  "  spent  an  hour 
and  a  half  in  relating  their  former  experiences  and 
present  exercises."  Martin  Ruter,  by  request  of  the 
bishops,  read  the  appointments,  and,  by  night,  many  of 
them  were  on  their  way  to  the  conflicts  of  another  year. 
On  Sunday,  before  the  adjournment,  Asbury  preached 
to  a  great  throng,  estimated  at  three  thousand,  from 
Isaiah's  exultant  words :  "  Sing,  O  ye  heavens,  for  the 
Lord  hath  done  it,  etc.,  for  the  Lord  hath  redeemed 
Jacob,  and  glorified  himself  in  Israel."  Isa.  xliv,  23. 
"  It  was,"  he  says,  "  an  open  season."  "  We  have 
ordained,"  he  remarks,  "twenty-one  deacons,  and  seven 
elders.  We  have  located  eleven  elders,  readmitted 
one,  and  added  seventeen  preachers  upon  trial.  There 
is  a  small  increase  here,  and  there  are  fair  prospects  for 
the  future.     I  am  kept  in  peace." 

The  day  following  the  adjournment  he  departed  west- 
ward. On  Saturday,  24th,  he  reached  Danville,  Vt., 
and,  though  quite  exhausted  with  fatigue  and  feeble- 
ness, preached  on  the  morrow  in  the  court-house.  He 
had  to  sit  during  the  discourse.  "  From  New  York  to 
Danville,"  he  writes,  "we  compute  our  ride  to  have 
been  seven  hundred  miles."  On  Tuesday  he  again 
preached,  but  at  the  village  chapel  this  time.  Two  of 
his  itinerant  brethren  were  with  him.  Being  too  feeble 
to  go  into  the  pulpit,  he  took  his  position  in  a  pew  near 
it,  and  thence  addressed  the  assembly  from  Heb.  iii, 
12-14  His  congregations  were  large,  and  the  court, 
which  was  in  session,  invited  him  to  preach  before  it ; 
but  "  I  had  no  strength  and  no  time  for  this,"  he  re- 
marks.    He  was  on  his  route  the  same  day.     On  Friday, 

d 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         319 

30th,  he  was  od  the  shore  of  Lake  Champlain.  "I 
preached,"  he  writes,  "at  Fuller's,  from  Titus  iii,  7,  8. 
Here  1  ordained  Joseph  Sampson,  a  native  of  Canada, 
and  sent  him  a  missionary  to  his  countrymen."  He 
adds,  prophetically,  "The  day  of  small  things  will  he 
great ;  but  the  time  is  not  yet  come ;  rather,  it  is  still 
afar  off.  Patience,  my  soul ! "  He  passed  into  New 
York,  and  thence  westward  and  southward. 

Again  we  find  him  (May  18,  1810)  entering  the  East 
by  way  of  Vermont,  and  on  the  20th  preaching  in  Pitts- 
field,  Mass.,  where  the  New  York  Conference  assembled 
the  next  day,  for  much  of  its  territory  was  still  within 
the  New  England  states.  "  Bishop  M'Kendree,"  he 
writes,  "  spoke  in  the  afternoon ;  his  subject  was  well 
chosen  and  well  improved.  There  was  also  a  prayer- 
meeting,  and  in  the  Congregational  house  George  Pick- 
ering preached.  We  sat  in  Conference  until  Saturday. 
Among  the  ordination<  was  that  of  Stephen  Bamford, 
recommended  from  Nova  Scotia  for  elder's  orders.  We 
have  stationed  eighty-four  preachers,  sent  two  mission 
aries,  one  to  Michigan,  and  one  to  Detroit.  There  was 
a  considerable  deficiency  in  our  funds,  which  left  the 
unmarried  preachers  a  very  small  pittance."  From 
Pitt-field  lie  passed  to  Winchester,  X.  IT.,  where  the 
New  England  Conference  was  held  in  the  Congre- 
gational Church,  the  preachers  meanwhile  holding  a 
camp-meeting  within  three  miles.  "  Ther<  wa*,v  he 
say-,  "a  work  of  God  manifestly,  and  opposition  rose 
powerfully.  We  regretted  we  could  not  stay  two  day- 
more"  He  hastened  to  Boston,  thence  to  Newport, 
and  back  through  Rhode  Uland  and  Connecticut  to 
New  York,  "sounding  the  alarm"  all  the  way. 

Such  are  glimpses  of  hie  '•  few  England,  down 

to  the  end  of  the  fir-'  tttury,  a  monoton 


320  HISTORY     OF    THE 

ous  record,  but  with  a  monotony  of  incredible  labors.  His 
vhole  life  was  a  monotony  of  wonders.  His  records  of 
his  subsequent  tours  in  the  East  are  hardly  more  than 
allusions,  except  in  one  instance.  He  sees  the  possibility 
of  a  great  future,  but  grieves  over  the  encroachments  of 
pews,  steeples,  musical  instruments.  In  his  last  visit  he 
can  hardly  attend  the  Conference.  Pickering  presides 
for  him.  He  is  old  and  worn  out,  and  in  a  few  months 
must  die. 

Lee  once  more  passed  over  the  scene.  After  an  ab- 
sence of  eight  years  in  the  South  he  was  anxious  tc 
revisit  his  early  eastern  battle-fields,  and  see  how  the 
contest  still  went  on.  His  passage  was  a  humble  but. 
exultant  religious  ovation.  Many  changes  had  occur- 
red since  his  departure.  Methodism  had  enlarged  its 
tents  and  strengthened  its  stakes  on  all  hands,  and  most 
of  its  preachers  had  commenced  their  travels  in  this 
interval.  He  proposed  now  to  greet  his  old  friends, 
and  take  his  final  leave  of  them  till  they  should  meet 
again  in  the  "building  of  God,  the  house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens."  He  lingered  on  his 
route  toward  the  North,  visiting  and  preaching  among 
the  Churches,  till  the  latter  part  of  June,  1808,  when, 
crossing  the  Sound,  he  landed  at  Norwalk,  Conn.,  the 
village  on  whose  highway  he  had  preached  his  first 
sermon  in  New  England.  "  He  was  much  gratified," 
says  his  biographer,  "  in  saluting,  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  some  of  his  friends  of  former  days.  Almost 
twenty  years  had  passed  away  since  he  first,  as  a  stran 
ger,  entered  this  part  of  the  world."  On  Saturday, 
July  2,  he  is  at  Stratfield,  where  he  had  formed  his  first 
New  England  class.  The  little  flock  assemble  and 
receive  his  final  counsels.  After  praying  with  them  he 
hastens  to  New  Haven,  where  he  spends  the  Sunday, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUKCIT.         321 

preaching  three  times  to  weeping  congregations.     By 

the  next  Saturday  he  reaches  his  old  friend,  General 
Lippett's  home,  Cranston,  It.  I.,  and  on  Sunday  has 
"another  precious  time  of  the  love  and  presence  of 
God."  Through  Providence  and  Bristol  he  passes  to 
Newport,  where  Merwin  is  stationed,  and  meets  good 
Captain  Beale,  "  who  commands  the  fort,  and  is  a 
steady  Methodist."  He  preaches  there  repeatedly  to 
crowded  and  Bobbing  assemblies.  "I  warned  them,"  he 
writes,  "and  entreated  them,  as  though  I  never  more 
were  to  see  them."  "With  tears  and  benedictions 
and  last  farewells  all  along  his  route  he  reaches 
Boston  on  Thursday,  the  21st,  and  finds  the  same  even- 
ing a  congregation  ready  to  hear  him  in  the  old  church, 
and  another,  the  next  night,  in  the  new.  By  Saturday 
he  is  with  his  first  society,  in  Massachusetts,  at  Lynn. 
They  call  on  him  at  the  parsonage  in  the  evening.  The 
next  day  being  the  Sabbath  he  preaches  to  them  in  the 
morning,  with  much  effect,  from  Isa.  xxxiii,  13.  "It 
was,"  he  writes,  "  an  affecting  time.  At  three  o'clock  I 
preached  again,  and  the  house  was  much  thronged.  The 
Lord  was  with  us.  And  also  at  six  o'clock  my  soul  was 
much  comforted  in  speaking  to  the  people,  and  many 
wept  under  the  word.  When  I  put  the  brethren  in 
mind  of  my  first  coming  among  them,  and  the  difficul- 
ties  that  I,  as  well  as  they,  had  to  go  through,  they 
could  not  forbear  weeping.  I  could  but  hope  that  a 
blessing  would  follow  that  meeting.  I  have  not  been 
bo  well  pleased  for  a  long  time  at  meeting  my  old 
friends  as  I  was  at  this  place." 

By  Friday,  the  30th,  he  is  in  Maine,  the  field  of  his 
hardest  conflicts.  The  people  flock  to  hear  him  on  all 
his  route,  and  have  often  to  leave  their  chapels  and 
turn  into  the  woods  for  room.     At  Monmouth,  where 


822  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  first  society  was  formed,  they  cannot  get  into  the 
house ;  many,  after  the  service,  come  to  the  altar  to  give 
him  their  hands  in  pledge  of  meeting  him  in  heaven. 
"They  wept,"  he  says,  "and  I  could  not  refrain  from 
weeping."  Soule  and  Fogg  are  with  him  there.  The 
preachers  generally  gather  about  him  as  he  passes 
along,  saluting  him  as  an  old  leader  and  conqueror,  and 
joining  in  the  jubilatic  gatherings  of  the  people. 

Similar  scenes  occurred  at  Winthrop.  At  Arrington  "  I 
had,"  he  says,  "  a  large  company  of  people  to  hear  me, 
and  I  spoke  with  great  freedom  and  faith  ;  and  the 
hearers  felt  the  power  of  the  word.  Then,  at  half  past 
two  o'clock  I  preached  to  a  crowded  assembly.  When 
I  called  upon  them  to  remember  former  days,  when  I 
first  visited  them,  about  fifteen  years  before,  which  was 
the  first  time  they  ever  heard  a  Methodist  preacher, 
many  of  them  were  bathed  in  tears,  for  many,  both 
parents  and  children,  had  been  converted  under  the 
preaching  of  the  Methodists.  It  was  indeed  a  solemn 
time,  and  my  soul  was  much  quickened  and  blessed. 
In  the  afternoon  I  had  a  crowded  house.  The  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  God  came  upon  me  while  I  was  speaking,  and 
I  wept,  and  the  people  wept  greatly.  When  I  dismissed 
them,  1  told  them  that  I  was  about  to  leave  them,  and 
had  but  little  expectation  of  ever  preaching  in  that 
place  again.  Many  came  and  gave  me  their  hands, 
and,  with  streaming  eyes,  begged  my  prayers,  and 
wished  my  welfare.  Several  came  who  had  never  been 
converted,  and,  crying  aloud,  said  they  would  try  to 
get  to  Heaven  if  they  could.  I  have  no  doubt  but  a 
lasting  blessing  will  follow  this  meeting.  Monday,  22d, 
I  turned  my  course  back  toward  my  native  country, 
being  f,hen  about  one  thousand  miles  from  home.  I 
cross?.' v  Penobscot  River  to  Hampden.     Tuesday,  23d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CIIURC1I.  328 

i>f  August,  I  rode  to  the  Twenty-five  Mile  Pond,  which 
is  now  a  thickly-settled  country  most  part  of  the  way 
through;  but  when  I  first  traveled  the  road,  about  fif- 
teen years  ago,  there  was  not  a  house  to  be  seen  for 
twenty  miles."  On  Sunday,  28th,  he  preached  to  great 
crowds  at  Farmington,  who  "  wept  in  every  part  of  the 
house/'  "  When  I  first  came  among  them,1'  he  says, 
"  they  had  never  seen  a  Methodist ;"  but  now,  besides 
the  communieants  and  thronged  conore^ations,  there 
Mere  "nine  local  preachers"  around  him.  "Surely," 
he  adds,  "  the  Lord  hath  done  great  things  for  us.  The 
people  were  greatly  wrought  upon.  I  had  a  sorrowful 
parting  with  many  of  my  old  friends,  whom  I  never 
expect  to  see  again." 

Pa-sing  through  many  other  towns,  with  similar 
greetings,  he  entered  New  Hampshire,  having  spent 
forty-three  days,  and  preached  forty-seven  times  in 
Maine.  lie  gave  nearly  a  week  and  seven  farewell 
sermons  to  the  former,  and  by  the  14th  of  Septem- 
ber was  again  in  Lynn,  Mass.,  where  he  delivered 
to  the  Church  his  final  exhortations,  and  "had  a  sor- 
rowful parting  from  his  old  friends."  Spending  a  few 
•lav-  in  Boston,  he  passed  into  the  interior,  through 
Waltham,  Ware,  and  YYilbraham,  to  Hartford,  Conn., 
preaching  as  he  went.  Alter  spending  six  days  and 
delivering  seven  sermons  in  Connecticut,  he  reached 
Garrettson's  "Traveler's  Rest,"  at  Khinebeck,  on  Fri- 
day, the  30th.  Thus  ended  Lee's  personal  connection 
with  Methodism  in  New  England.  His  historical  con- 
nection with  it  will  probably  last  till  the  consummation 
of  all  things.  He  Borvived  this  visit  about  eight  years, 
during  which  he  continued  to  labor  indefatigahly  in  the 
Middle  and  Southern  states. 

Through  th<    remainder  of  this  period  the  history  ol 


82-J:  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  Church  in  the  Eastern  states  was  a  continuous  repe- 
tition of  such  events  and  scenes  as  have  been  narrated : 
the  holding  of  obscure  Annual  Conferences,  where, 
however,  great  things  were  devised ;  gradual  additions 
of  circuits,  and  reinforcements  of  the  ministry  by  such 
men  as  have  already  been  named ;  the  building  ol 
churches,  and  frequent  "revivals,"  sometimes  extending 
over  much  of  the  country,  especially  now  that  camp- 
meetings  were  introduced ;  excessive  travels,  privations, 
and  labors  by  the  itinerants;  not  unfrequent  persecu- 
tions and  mobs ;  but  continual  triumphs. 

Seven  Eastern  evangelists  fell,  in  death,  in  these  years. 
In  1 806,  in  Boston,  Peter  Jayne,  a  native  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  traveled  ten  years  in  Maine,  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  and  New  York,  and  was  long  remembered 
as  a  superior  man.  In  1808  Henry  Martin,  "thorough  in 
both  the  theory  and  practice  of  religion,"  a  laborer  in 
Maine,  where,  in  attempting  to  form  a  new  circuit,  he 
sank  under  his  labors,  and  died  "  with  songs  of  praise," 
say  the  Minutes,  "  on  his  quivering  lips."  In  1810  Will- 
iam Hunt,  of  Massachusetts,  a  close  student,  a  powerful 
preacher  in  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Massachusetts. 
"  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,"  he  said  as  he  came  to  die, 
and  requesting  his  attendants  to  take  him  from  his  bed 
and  place  him  upon  his  knees,  he  expired  kneeling,  in 
"  holy  triumph."  In  1812  Thomas  Branch,  of  Connecti- 
cut, whose  affecting  death  in  the  western  wilderness  has 
heretofore  been  noticed.  In  1814  Abner  Clark,  of  New 
Hampshire,  who  departed  exclaiming,  "I  am  going,  1 
am  going.  Blessed  be  God  for  victory  over  sin,  the 
world,  and  the  devil !  I  have  gained  the  victory ! " 
In  1817  Gad  Smith,  of  Connecticut,  an  effective 
preacher,  "  resigned  and  triumphant  in  death."  In 
1819   Jason   Walker,  of  Massachusetts,  who   "passed 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         OZO 

the  valley  of  the  shadow   of  death  in   calmness,  joy, 
and  triumph." 

The  first  decade  of  the  century  ended  with  Method- 
ism established  in  all  the  New  England  states.  It  had 
one  extensive  Conference,  and  a  large  portion  of  a  sec- 
ond. The  four  districts  with  which  it  began  the  cen- 
tury had  increased  to  eight ; 3  its  thirty-two  circuits  to 
seventy-one;  its  fifty-eight  preachers  to  one  hundred  and 
fourteen,  and  its  five  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  members  to  seventeen  thousand  live  hundred  and 
ninety-two.  These  statistics  exhibit  a  remarkable  prog 
ress,  even  if  we  take  not  into  account  the  quite  inaus- 
picious circumstances  of  the  denomination  in  the  East- 
ern states.  In  ten  years  its  districts  had  doubled,  its 
circuits  considerably  more  than  doubled,  its  ministry 
lacked  but  two  of  being  doubled,  and  its  membership 
had  more  than  trebled.  It  had  gained  in  these  ten 
years  eleven  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty-three 
numbers,  an  average  increase  of  more  than  one  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  seventy-five  each  year,  or  nearly 
one  hundred  per  month.  Its  self-sacrificing  preachers, 
who,  in  both  their  labors  and  sufferings,  were  indeed  "a 
spectacle  unto  the  world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men," 
might  well  have  exclaimed,  "Thanks  be  unto  God. 
which  always  caoseth  us  to  triumph  in  Christ,  and 
maketh  manifest  the  savor  of  his  knowledge  by  us  in 
every  place."  There  was  no  considerable  section  of 
New  England  which  was  not  now  penetrated  or  com- 
passed  by  their  circuits,  and  but  tew  localities  which 
heard  not  occasionally,  if  not  regularly,  the  voice  of 
their  ministrations. 

At  the   close  of  the  second   decade  its   member-hip 

-  The  Bhinebeck  and  Ashgrcre  Districts  lay  partly  iu  New  Turk, 
Sut  mostly  in  New  England. 


32tf  HISTORY    OF    THF 

numbered  nearly  twenty-five  thousand,  its  ministry  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  traveling,  and  some  hundreds 
of  local  preachers.  Such  were  the  beginnings  and  early 
growths  of  that  great  harvest  which,  by  the  centenary 
of  American  Methodism  (1866)  was  to  yield,  in  New 
England,  one  hundred  and  three  thousand  four  hundred 
and  seventy  two  members,  and  about  a  thousand  travel- 
ing preachers,  with  nearly  nine  hundred  chapels,  more 
than  a  hundred  thousand  Sunday-school  students,  and 
thirteen  educational  institutions,  including  a  university, 
a  theological  school,  and  boarding  academies.  The  vi- 
tality of  Methodism  would  be  tested  in  New  England,  if 
anywhere;  the  result  has  been  most  satisfactory.  The 
increase  of  members,  from  the  beginning  of  the  century, 
has  been  eighteenfold.  In  1 800  there  was  one  Method- 
ist to  two  hundred  and  eleven  inhabitants;  in  1830,  one 
to  forty-four;  in  1866,  one  to  thirty-one.  The  greatest 
proportion  is  in  Vermont,  where  there  is  one  Methodist 
to  twenty  of  the  inhabitants ;  the  least  is  in  Rhode 
Island,  where  there  is  one  to  fifty-seven.  Through 
every  decade  save  one  (1840-1850)  the  denomination 
has  gained  upon  the  growth  of  the  population,  notwith- 
standing the  rapid  ingress  of  foreign  papists. 

Methodism  has  become,  in  our  day,  in  New  England 
aggregately,  the  second  denomination  in  numerical 
strength,  and  the  first  in  progress.  In  the  state  of  Maine 
it  is  the  first  numerically  ;  in  New  Hampshire,  Ver- 
mont, and  Connecticut  the  second;  in  Massachusetts  the 
third,  in  Rhode  Island  the  fourth.  In  the  metropolis 
itself  it  makes  more  rapid  progress  than  any  other  Prot- 
estant denomination,4  and  its  churches  are  among  the 

4  Report  of  the  New  England  Centenary  Convention,  p.  166 ,  Bos- 
ton, 1866.  The  report  of  the  Committee  on  Statistics,  p.  159,  made  by 
Rev.  D.  Dorchester,  is  exceedingly  valuable. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         327 

best  architectural  monuments  of  the  city.  Not  only  to 
the  frontier  populations  of  the  nation,  West,  South,  and 
North,  had  it  a  special  mission,  as  seen  in  its  peculiar 
adaptations  and  signal  success ;  it  had  a  providential 
work  in  New  England,  and  has  achieved  it  with  equal 
success.  At  its  introduction  there  the  reaction  of  the 
rigorous  Puritan  theology  had  set  in,  as  has  been  seen, 
and  was  threatening  the  very  foundations  of  "  ortho- 
doxy ;"  Methodism,  by  presenting  an  intermediate, 
benign,  and  vital  theology,  provided  a  safe  resting- 
place  for  the  public  mind.  It  has  stimulated  the  elder 
Churches  to  new  life,  and  has  fortified  itself  into  a 
powerful  communion  throughout  all  the  Eastern  states, 
sending  thence,  meanwhile,  into  all  other  parts  of  the 
Republic,  communicants,  preachers,  educators,  and  in- 
fluences which  have  developed  and  strengthened  the 
whole  denomination.  It  has  done  great  things  for  New 
England,  and  received  great  blessings  from  it. 


328  HISTOKY    OF    THE 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

METHODISM   IN  THE   WEST,  1804-1820. 

Geography  of  Western  Methodism  —  Progress  in  Western  Pennsyl- 
vania—  Pittsburgh  Conference  —  Robert  R.  Roberts's  Hardships  — 
Gruber  —  Usefulness  of  Shewel,  a  Local  Preacher  —  Thomas 
Branch's  Death  in  the  Wilderness — A  Society  formed  there  — 
James  B.  Finlej-'s  Character  — A  great  Western  Camp-meeting  — 
Finley's  Conversion  —  His  Labors  and  Sufferings  —  Sketch  of  Will- 
iam Swayze  —  Charles  Elliott's  Services  —  Alfred  Brunson  —  Quinn 
in  the  Northwestern  Territory  —  Whatcoat's  Salutation  —  Jano 
Trimble  —  Review  of  Quinn's  Labors  —  Primitive  Camp-meetings  — 
Growth  of  Methodism  in  Indiana  —  In  Michigan. 

Again  we  turn  to  the  "great  West,"  the  scene,  in  .our 
day,  of  the  greatest  triumphs  of  Methodism.  In  the 
outset  (1804)  it  is  still  the  one  "Western  Conference," 
with  its  four  districts  :  Holston,  under  John  Watson ; 
Cumberland,  under  Lewis  Garrett;  Kentucky,  under 
M'Kendree ;  Ohio,  under  Burke ;  these,  besides  the 
ultra- Alleghany  districts  of  Baltimore  Conference,  the 
Greenbrier  and  Monongahela;  while  the  Philadelphia 
Conference,  by  its  Genesee  District,  takes  in  the  Che- 
nango Circuit,  the  scene  of  Robert  R.  Roberts's  early 
Methodistic  life.  In  1806  the  Mississippi  District  ap- 
pears in  the  Minutes,  under  Learner  Blackman.  The 
successors  of  Tobias  Gibson,  seven  adventurous  itiner- 
ants, are  invading  the  great  Southwest.  In  1809  the 
immense  field  of  the  Northwestern  Territory  ceases  to 
be  a  solitary  district;  the  Ohio  District  divides  into 
two,  Miami  and  Muskingum,  respectively  commanded 
jby   Sale  and  Quinn,  and   the  Indiana  District,  unclei 


M  Kill  OP  I  ST    EPISCOPAL.    CHURCH.        329 

Samuel  Parker,  is  added  ;  the  latter  has  some  significant 
names  of  circuits,  among  which  are  Illinois,  traveled  by 
J<  sse  Walker  alone,  and  Missouri,  by  Abraham  Anus. 
In  1810  Green  River  District,  in  the  southwest,  is  added 
under  Burke.  In  1812  the  title  of  "Green  River"  dis- 
appears, and  we  have  three  new  districts,  Nashville, 
Wabash,  and  Salt  River.  Indiana  District  gives  place 
U  that  of  Illinois,  and  Baltimore  has  another  in  the 
West,  the  Ohio,  besides  those  of  Greenbrier  and  Mo- 
nongahela.  Chenango  passes  from  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Genesee  Conference  to  the  Ohio  District.  In  1813 
the  North  western  Territory  becomes  an  annual  Confer- 
ence, (by  order  of  the  General  Conference  of  1812,) 
under  the  title  of  Ohio.  It  comprehends  much  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  has  six  districts  :  Ohio,  under  Jacob  Young  ; 
Muskingum,  under  David  Young;  Sciota,  under  Quinn; 
Miami,  under  Solomon  Langdon ;  Kentucky,  under 
Sale:  Salt  River,  under  James  Ward.  The  name  of 
the  old  "  Western  Conference  "  disappears,  and  that  of 
Tennessee  is  first  recorded,  with  seven  grand  districts : 
Holston,  under  James  Axley.  comprising  the  early 
mountain  circuits;  Xashville,  under  Blackman;  Cum- 
berland, under  James  Gwinn  ;  Wabash,  under  Peter 
Cartwright;  Illinois,  under  Jesse  Walker;  Mississippi, 
under  Samuel  Sellers;  and  Louisiana,  under  Miles  Har- 
per. The  next  year  Green  River  District  is  added,  but 
those  of  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  disappear,  with  all 
their  itinerants,  hidden  in  the  clouds  of  the  British  war. 
Their  evangelists  work  on,  however,  holding  informal 
Conferences  among  themselves.  In  1815  their  two  dis- 
trict.^ reappear,  and  that  of  Missouri  i-  recorded,  de- 
tached from  Illinois  District,  and  commanded  by 
Samuel  II.  Thomp 
In  1817,  by  tli<>  Legislation  of  the  General  Confer- 


330  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ence  of  1816,  the  western  field  had  four  Conferences: 
Ohio,  with  five  districts,  under  Finley,  Jacob  and 
David  Young,  Moses  Crume,  and  Samuel  Parker;  Mis- 
souri, with  two  districts,  under  Samuel  EL  Thomp- 
son and  Jesse  Walker;  Tennessee,  with  six  districts, 
under  Marcus  Lindsey,  Thomas  L.  Douglass,  John 
M'Gee,  James  Axley,  Jesse  Cunningham,  and  John 
Henninger;  and  Mississippi,  with  two  districts,  under 
Thomas  Griffin  and  Ashley  Hewitt.  The  ecclesiastical 
arrangements  of  the  vast  field  remained  thus,  with  some 
local  variations  and  a  rapid  multiplication  of  districts, 
circuits,  preachers,  and  members,  down  to  the  expiration 
of  our  present  period,  when  the  General  Conference  of 
1820  created  the  Kentucky  Conference,  with  five  dis- 
tricts, under  John  Brown,  Alexander  Cummins,  Jona- 
than Stamper,  Marcus  Lindsey,  and  Charles  Holliday. 
Such  was  the  geography  of  western  Methodism  in  these 
years.  We  are  now  prepared  to  look  over  it  more  in 
detail,  though  it  must  be  with  but  glances.  Extra- 
ordinary triumphs  of  the  gospel,  and  men  of  gigantic 
proportions,  intellectual  and  moral,  multiply  too  fast  in 
the  grand  arena  for  our  space.  They  are  produced  by 
their  great  local  circumstances.  God  always  thus  pro- 
vides what  his  people  prepare  themselves  for.  A 
Church  or  a  State  that  projects  great  things  cannot  fail 
to  have  great  men.  We  descend,  then,  the  western 
slope  of  the  Alleghanies  again  to  witness  achievements, 
wonders,  seldom,  if  ever,  paralleled  in  religious  history — 
great  even  in  their  faults — characters,  labors,  sufferings, 
successes  which  moulded  young  and  semi-barbarous  com- 
munities that  have  since  become  mighty  states,  empires 
of  Christian  civilization,  controlling,  in  our  day,  the  fate 
of  the  new  world,  and  destined  probably,  before  another 
century,  to  affect  the  destinies  of  the  whole  world. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         331 

I  have  recorded  the  rapid  outspread  of  Methodism  in 
the  ultra  Alleghany  regions  of  Pennsylvania,  the  "Red- 
stone country."  It  advanced  victoriously  there  through- 
out the  present  period,  blending  on  the  Xorth  with  the 
southwestern  appointments  of  the  Genesee  Conference; 
on  the  West  with  the  circuits  of  the  itinerants  from 
Kentucky,  who  were  now  ranging  through  nearly  all 
the  sparse  settlements  of  Ohio;  on  the  South  with  the 
labors  of  the  mountaineer  itinerants  of  the  Holston 
country.  It  was  still  a  single  presiding  elder's  district 
successively  under  Fleming,  James  Hunter,  Gruber, 
Jacob  Young,  and  Finley,  and  appertained  to  the  dis- 
tant Baltimore  Conference  down  to  1812,  when,  the  Ohio 
Conference  having  been  organized,  it  was  placed  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  latter.  In  1820  its  ample  field 
was  divided  between  the  Genesee  and  the  Ohio  Confer- 
ences :  two  circuits,  the  Chautauqua  and  Lake,  belong- 
ing to  the  former,  under  the  presiding  eldership  of 
Gideon  Draper,  the  remainder  still  belonging  to  the 
latter.  This  arrangement  continued  undisturbed  till 
1825,  when  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  was  organized, 
comprehending  all  the  appointments  in  two  large  dis- 
tricts, the  Erie  and  the  Ohio.  A  renowned  ecclesiastical 
body  was  this  "  old  Pittsburgh  Conference  "  to  become  ; 
thronged  with  notable  men,  constituting  the  chief 
northern  stronghold  of  Methodism  between  the  East 
and  the  West,  and  yielding  at  last  the  Erie  Conference 
on  its  north,  and  the  Western  Virginia  on  its  south. 

Robert  R.  Roberts  returned  from  his  more  eastward 
labors  in  the  autumn  of  1804,  and  traveled  the  Erie 
Circuit,  placing  his  family  again  in  his  log-cabin  in 
Chenango.1  His  circuit  required  more  than  four  hundred 
miles  travel  every  four  weeks  ''along  blind  paths  found 
:  Meth.  in  Brie  Cunf.,  p.  63. 

D— 22  d 


66A  HISTORY     OF    THE 

by  marked  trees,  across  swollen  unbridged  streams,  over 
rugged  precipices  and  high  hills,  now  winding  around 
steep,  rocky  mountain  sides,  and  then  plunging  through 
deep  miry  morasses  ;  he  sometimes  camped  in  the  woods 
all  night,  wearied  and  hungry,  resting  his  head  upon  the 
root  of  some  forest  tree,  while  his  faithful  horse  stood 
tied  up  without  a  mouthful  to  eat,  and  not  unfrequently 
he  encountered  wild  "beasts,  savage  men,  and  venom- 
ous serpents."  In  his  second  year  on  the  circuit  it 
was  so  enlarged  as  to  require  six  weeks'  travel  around, 
and  a  sermon  every  day.  He  subsequently  labored  on 
Pittsburgh  (1807)  and  West  Wheeling  (1808)  circuits, 
thus  traversing  nearly  the  whole  field,  and  no  man 
excelled  him  in  work  or  hardships.  He  passed  again  to 
the  eastward,  (in  1809,)  and  thence  (in  1816)  to  his  con- 
tinental diocese  as  bishop. 

Gruber,  appointed  to  the  district  in  1810,  was  in  his 
element  among  its  rude  scenes  and  great  revivals.  It 
was  called  the  Monongahela  District,  and  reached  to 
the  Alleghanies  on  the  east,  to  the  Greenbrier  Mount 
ains  of  Virginia  on  the  south,  to  the  farthest  white  set 
tlements  of  Ohio  on  the  west,  to  Lake  Erie  on  the  north, 
comprehending  ten  vast  circuits.  He  held  numerous 
camp-meetings,  convenient  occasions  for  the  dispersed 
population,  and  the  whole  region  was  pervaded  with 
religious  interest.  Methodism  had  effectually,  though 
slowly,  broken  into  the  Western  Reserve  by  the  labors 
of  Shewel  and  Bostwick.  The  former  a  local  preacher, 
whom  we  have  seen  working  for  the  Church  in  Western 
Virginia,  and  penetrating  to  the  Reserve  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century,  now  rejoiced  in  the  spiritual  har- 
vest around  him,  and,  after  toiling  through  the  week 
with  his  hands,  went  about  on  Sunday,  usually  on  foot, 
to  distant  settlements,  holding  meetings  and  organizing 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         333 

societies.  Like  M'Connick,  of  Ohio,  and  other  lay  evan- 
gelists, he  was  practically  an  apostle  in  the  wilderness. 
He  even  moved  his  residence  to  extend  his  religious 
labors.  Passing  from  Deerfield  he  settled  in  Harts- 
town,  Portage  County,  Ohio,  in  1814,  and  began  preach- 
ing in  all  the  neighboring  regions,  besides  turning  his 
own  cabin  into  a  Sabbath  "appointment."  He  formed 
many  classes.  "  Thus,"  says  the  local  historian,3  "  did 
this  faithful  old  pioneer  find  his  way  into  the  new  set- 
tlements, breaking  up  new  ground,  and  after  raising  up 
societies,  he  would  hand  them  over  to  the  preachers  on 
the  circuit,  and  then  seek  out  new  places  of  labor. 
'Father'  Shewel  was  a  terror  to  the  wicked,  and 
often  incurred  their  displeasure  by  his  severity.  One 
good  Presbyterian  lady  was  so  exasperated  at  the 
severity  of  his  remarks  one  day  that  she  said,  'Father 
Shewel  was  no  more  fit  to  preach  the  gospel  than  a 
chestnut-burr  was  fit  to  be  an  eyeball;'  but  soon  after- 
ward, hearing  a  man  who  had  been  very  wicked  date 
his  conversion  from  Shewel's  preaching,  recalled  the 
uncharitable  expression,  and  became  a  great  admirer  of 
the  man." 

Jacob  Young,  whose  itinerant  adventures  in  Kentucky 
and  the  Ilolston  Mountains  we  have  witnessed,  trav- 
eled this  district  for  three  years  like  a  herald,  directing, 
and  inspiriting  with  his  own  energy,  a  powerful  corps  of 
preachers,  who  made  their  way  to  the  obscurest  settle- 
ments. They  reached  at  last  (about  1812)  the  place 
where  Thomas  Branch  had  met  his  affecting  death  in 
the  wilderness  on  his  way  from  New  England  to  the  far 
West,  a-  heretofore  recorded.  It  was  called  North  East, 
and  is  in  Erie  County,  Penn.  There  was  not  a  Method- 
ist within  twenty  niil<  9   of  the  dying  hero,  but  Youi. 

gg,p.  119. 


334  HISTORY     OF    THE 

pioneers  soon  formed  a  society  on  the  spot,  some  of  its 
members  probably  being  the  fruits  of  Branch's  last  ex- 
hortations and  prayers.  A  local  preacher  from  Canada 
built  his  cabin  there,  and  did  good  service  for  the  young 
society.  A  chapel  was  erected,  "  and,"  says  the  histo- 
rian,8 "  the  Church  has  maintained  a  prosperous  exist- 
ence ever  since,  and  many  happy  spirits  have  go*ie  up 
from  that  town  to  join  the  triumphant  host  in  heaven." 
The  same  authority,  referring  to  Branch,  adds:  "The 
day  of  his  burial  found  a  few  of  his  friends  present  who 
had  been  blessed  through  his  instrumentality,  and  who  de- 
sired in  turn  to  give  him  a  respectable  Christian  funeral 
and  burial.  But  the  little  log  Calvinistic  church  could 
not  be  procured  for  that  purpose,  nor  were  they  permitted 
to  iuter  his  body  in  the  newly  inclosed  cemetery,  nor 
could  they  procure  a  respectable  team  or  carriage  with 
which  to  carry  the  corpse  to  the  grave.  At  the  hour 
appointed  a  prayer  was  offered,  and  the  coffin  jjlaced  on 
a  wood-sled  and  drawn  by  a  yoke  of  oxen  about  one 
mile  and  a  quarter  west  from  the  present  village  of 
North  East,  and  on  the  north  side  of  the  Erie  and  Buf- 
falo road  this  sainted  man  was  buried  in  a  beautiful 
grove.  To  the  honor  of  the  people  of  that  town  be  it 
said,  they  have  long  since  so  enlarged  the  cemetery  as 
to  bring  within  its  inclosure  the  grave  of  the  lamented 
Branch.  The  writer  was  permitted  several  years  since 
to  visit  the  place,  and  shed  a  few  tears  over  the  turf 
that  covers  his  sacred  dust." 

An  important  western  character  appeared  in  this 
field  in  1816.  Young  failed  to  reach  the  district  after 
the  General  Conference  of  that  year ;  James  B.  Finley 
came  to  supply  his  place,  and  continued  to  superintend 
it  till  1819  with  extraordinary  zeal  and  success.  Few 
3  Gregg,  p.  110. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         835 

men  have  attained  more  distinction  as  evangelical 
I  ioneers  of  the  West ;  he  was,  in  all  respects,  a  genu- 
ine child  of  the  wilderness,  one  of  its  best  "  typical " 
men;  of  stalwart  frame,  "features  rather  coarse,"4  but 
large  benevolent  eyes,  "  sandy  hair,  standing  erect,"  a 
good,  expressive  mouth,  a  "  voice  like  thunder,"  and  a 
courage  that  made  riotous  opposers  (whom  he  often 
encountered)  quail  before  him.  He  did  not  hesitate  to 
seize  disturbers  of  his  meetings,  shake  them  in  his 
athletic  grasp,  and  pitch  them  out  of  the  windows  or 
doors.  Withal  his  heart  was  most  genial,  his  discourses 
full  of  pathos,  and  his  friendships  the  most  tender  and 
lasting.  All  over  the  northwest  he  worked  mightily, 
through  a  long  life,  to  found  and  extend  his  Church, 
traveling  circuits  and  districts,  laboring  as  missionary 
to  the  Indians,  and  chaplain  to  prisoners,  and  in  his  old 
age  making  valuable  historical  contributions  to  its 
literature.5 

Though  born  in  Xorth  Carolina,  (in  1781,)  his  child- 
hood was  spent  in  Kentucky,  where  be  grew  up  with 
all  the  hardy  habits  of  the  pioneer  settlers.  In  early 
manhood  he  and  all  his  father's  family  were  borne 
along  bv  the  current  of  emigration  into  the  Xorth- 
western  Territory,  where  he  lived  to  see  his  state 
(Ohio)  become  a  dominant  part  of  the  American 
Union.  He  had  been  a  rough,  reckless,  and  entirely 
irreligious  youth,  associating  with  Indians,  a  "  mighty 
hunter"  among  the  "backwoodsmen,"  fond  of  nearly 
every  excess,  and  of  the  most  hazardous  adventures 
with  savage  men  and  beasts.     The  camp-meetings  of 

4  Gregg,  P-  M8L 

6  In  my  own  collections  arc,  from  his  pen,  "Autobiography,"  Cin- 
cinnati, lfr54;  "Sketches  of  Western  Methodism,"  Cincinnati,  1857; 
"Lite  among  the  Indians,"  Cincinnati,  1857;  "Memorials  of  Pr&or 
Life,"  Cincinnati,  18*0. 

I 


336  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  Presbyterians  and  Methodists  in  Kentucky  had 
spread,  about  the  beginning  of  the  century,  a  vivid  re- 
ligious interest  all  over  the  West.  Finley's  sensitive 
though  rough  nature  could  not  escape  it.  He  went 
with  some  of  his  associates  to  Cane  Ridge,  Ky.,  his 
former  home,  to  witness  one  of  these  great  occasions 
His  own  story  gives  us  a  striking  view  of  them  in  theii 
primitive,  their  rude  western  grandeur  and  excesses. 
"  A  scene  presented  itself,"  he  says,  "  to  my  mind  not 
only  novel  and  unaccountable,  but  awful  beyond  de- 
scription. A  vast  crowd,  supposed  by  some  to  have 
amounted  to  twenty -five  thousand,  was  collected  to- 
gether. The  noise  was  like  the  roar  of  Niagara.  The 
sea  of  human  beings  seemed  to  be  agitated  as  if  by 
storm.  I  counted  seven  ministers  all  preaching  at  the 
same  time ;  some  on  stumps,  others  on  wagons,  and  one, 
William  Burke,  standing  on  a  tree  which,  in  falling, 
had  lodged  against  another.  Some  of  the  people  were 
singing,  others  praying,  some  crying  for  mercy  in  the 
most  piteous  accents.  While  witnessing  these  scenes  a 
peculiarly  strange  sensation,  such  as  I  had  never  felt 
before,  came  over  me.  My  heart  beat  tremendously, 
ray  knees  trembled,  my  lip  quivered,  and  I  felt  as 
though  I  must  fall  to  the  ground.  A  strange  super- 
natural power  seemed  to  pervade  the  mass  of  mind 
there  collected.  I  became  so  weak  that  I  found  it 
necessary  to  sit  down.  Soon  after  I  left  and  went  into 
the  woods,  and  there  strove  to  rally  and  man  up  my 
courage.  After  some  time  I  returned  to  the  scene  ot 
excitement,  the  waves  of  which  had,  if  possible,  risen 
still  higher.  The  same  awfulness  of  feeling  came  over 
me.  I  stepped  up  on  a  log,  where  I  could  have  a  better 
view  of  the  surging  sea  of  humanity.  The  scene  that 
then  presented  itself  to  my  eye  was  indescribable.     At 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        337 

one  time  I  saw  at  least  five  hundred  swept  down  in  a 
moment,  as  if  a  battery  of  a  thousand  guns  had  been 
opened  upon  them.  My  hair  rose  up  on  my  head,  my 
whole  frame  trembled,  the  blood  ran  cold  in  my  veins, 
and  I  fled  to  the  woods  a  second  time,  and  wished  that 
I  had  stayed  at  home."'  He  went  to  a  neighboring  tav- 
ern, where,  amid  a  throng  of  drinking  and  fighting 
backwoodsmen,  he  swallowed  a  dram  of  brandy,  but 
afterward  felt  worse  than  before  ;  "  as  near  hell,"  he 
says,  "  as  I  could  wish  to  be,  in  either  this  world  or  that 
to  come."  Drawn  irresistibly  back  to  the  meeting,  he 
gazed  again,  appalled,  upon  its  scenes.  That  night  he 
slept  in  a  barn,  a  most  wretched  man.  The  next  day 
he  hastily  left  for  his  home  with  one  of  his  companions. 
They  were  both  too  absorbed  in  their  reflections  to  con- 
verse as  they  journeyed ;  but,  says  Finley,  "  When  we 
arrived  at  the  blue  Lick  Knobs  I  broke  the  silence 
which  reigned  between  us,  and  said,  '  Captain,  if  you 
and  I  don't  stop  our  wickedness  the  devil  will  get  us 
both.'"  Tears  gushed  freely  from  the  eyes  of  both. 
The  next  night  was  spent  without  slumber  at  a  place 
called  May's  Lick.  '-As  soon  as  day  broke,"  adds 
Finley,  "  I  went  to  the  woods  to  pray,  and  no  sooner 
had  my  knees  touched  the  ground  than  I  cried  aloud 
for  mercy  and  salvation,  and  fell  prostrate.  My  cries 
were  so  loud  that  they  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
neighbors,  many  of  whom  gathered  around  me.  Among 
the  number  was  a  German  from  Switzerland,  who  had 
experienced  religion.  lie,  understanding  fully  my  con- 
dition, had  me  carried  to  his  house  and  laid  on  a  bed. 
The  old  Dutch  saint  directed  me  to  look  right  away  to 
the  Saviour.  He  then  kneeled  by  my  bedside  and 
prayed  for  me  most  fervently  in  Dutch  and  broken 
Eglish.     lie  rose  and  sang  in  the  Bame  manner,  and 


338  HISTORY    OF    THE 

continued  singing  and  praying  alternately  till  nine 
o'clock,  when  suddenly  my  load  was  gone,  my  guilt 
removed,  and  presently  the  direct  witness  from  heaven 
shone  fully  upon  my  heart.  Then  there  flowed  such 
copious  streams  of  love  into  the  hitherto  waste  and 
desolate  places  of  my  soul,  that  I  thought  I  should  die 
with  excess  of  joy.  So  strangely  did  I  appear  to  all  but 
the  Dutch  brother  that  they  thought  me  deranged. 
After  a  time  I  returned  to  my  companion,  and  we 
started  on  our  journey.  O  what  a  day  it  was  to  my 
soul ! " 

For  seven  years  no  Methodist  itinerant  reached  his 
remote  home  in  the  Northwestern  Territory,  and  he  lost 
these  powerful  influences  ;  but  in  1808  he  went,  with  his 
wife,  some  miles  to  a  Methodist  class-meeting,  and  soon 
after  both  joined  the  Church.  In  1809  John  Sale  called 
him  out  to  travel  the  Sciota  Circuit.  He  was  received,  the 
same  year,  into  the  Conference,  and  continued  to  travel 
circuits  till  he  was  sent,  in  1816,  to  supply  the  place  of 
Young  in  Western  Pennsylvania.  From  one  end  of  his 
great  field  to  the  other  his  trumpet  was  now  continually 
sounding,  awakening  the  most  hidden  settlements.  His 
privations  and  labors  were  excessive^  but  could  not 
daunt  him.  "I  suffered  much,"  he  writes,  "with  cold, 
which  I  had  contracted  by  exposure  to  the  chilling 
blasts  of  the  northern  lakes.  Our  meetings  were  all 
attended  with  the  presence  and  power  of  God,  and  the 
preachers  were  all  in  the  spirit  of  revivals.  At  North 
East  we  had  a  most  glorious  time  both  among  saints 
and  sinners.  The  snow  was  about  two  feet  deep,  and 
continued  for  a  long  time,  affording  great  facilities  for 
sleighing,  which  were  improved.  Vast  numbers  came 
to  church,  and  many  were  converted.  At  this  place  I 
ri sited  the  grave  of  Thomas  Branch.  .  .  .  My  feelings 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         3o9 

were  of  a  peculiarly  solemn  character  as  I  stood  by  that 
lone  grave  of  the  stranger  minister  in  a  strange  land." 
His  example  inspired  his  preachers  to  labor  and  suffer. 
"Great,"  he  says,  "  were  the  toils  and  hardships  they 
were  called  to  endure.  The  winter  was  extremely 
severe,  the  cold  being  almost  beyond  endurance,  yet 
the  Lord  crowned  the  labor  and  sufferings  of  his  minis- 
ters with  success.  The  country  was  but  sparsely  set- 
tled, the  rides  were  long,  and  roads  rough,  the  fare 
hard,  and  provisions  scarce  ;  but  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
Lord  was  with  them.  To  preach  once  every  day  and 
lead  class,  (after  having  traveled  from  ten  to  twenty 
miles.)  and  two  or  three  times  on  the  Sabbath,  leading 
as  many  classes,  with  the  privilege  of  being  at  home 
three  days  out  of  thirty,  would  now  be  regarded  as 
severe  work." 

William  Swayze  succeeded  Finley  on  the  district  in 
1 S  ]  9.  He  also  was  one  of  "  the  giants  of  those  days.*' 
He  was  born  in  Xew  Jersey  in  17^4.  In  his  youth  he 
was  led,  by  a  pious  African,  to  hear  a  Methodist 
preacher  near  Baltimore,  was  awakened  and  converted, 
and  soon  after  received  into  the  Church  by  Philip 
Bruce.  It  was  not  long  before  he  was  preaching  "  with 
surprising  ability."  A  horse  and  outfit  were  presented 
to  him,  and  he  started  on  a  ministerial  tour  through 
Delaware,  Xew  Jersey,  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and 
Vermont.  In  1807  he  was  received  by  the  New  York 
Conference,  and  began  a  course  of  eight  years' c  most 
successful  travels  and  labors,  chiefly  on  New  England 
circuits.  "  He  became,''  says  the  western  historian, 
"emphatically  a  'son  of  thunder,'  attracting  great 
crowds  of  people  to  his  ministry,  and  speaking  with  a 
power  and  pathos  that  few  have  ever  equaled,  moving 


340  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and   exciting  many,  some  to  tears,  others  to  cry  for 
mercy,  while  others  would  shout  for  joy."  7 

In  1815  he  was  transferred  to  the  Ohio  Conference, 
where  his  ministrations  wTere  attended  with  his  former 
success,  and  where  living  witnesses  of  his  usefulness 
still  survive,  especially  on  Columbus  Circuit  and  in 
Chillicothe.  In  the  latter  place  his  word  was  eminently 
in  the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  power.  In  1820 
he  took  charge  of  the  Ohio  District,  and  "  his  labors,  for 
almost  four  years,  were  crowned  with  unexampled  suc- 
cess." 8  By  the  division  of  the  Conference  in  1824,  he 
was  assigned  to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  and  ap- 
pointed to  the  Erie  District,  where  he  was  distinguished 
by  "his  usual  prosperity."  In  1828  he  superintended 
the  Canton  District.  In  1830  he  was  retransferred  to 
the  Ohio  Conference.  After  having  borne  the  burden 
of  twenty-seven  years'  labor  and  suffering  in  some  of 
the  most  difficult  portions  of  the  ministerial  field,  the 
infirmities  of  age  and  illness  at  last  disabled  him.  When 
no  longer  able  to  perform  effective  service,  his  brethren 
of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  invited  him,  by  formal 
request,  to  return  to  their  body,  share  their  provisions 
for  wornout  preachers,  and  die  among  them.  In  hon- 
oring him  with  this  act  of  generous  consideration  the 
Conference  still  more  eminently  honored  itself.  He 
was  placed  upon  its  superannuated  list,  where  he  re- 
mained till  he  departed  to  his  final  rest,  at  Edinburgh, 
Ohio,  in  1841,  in  the  fifty-seventh  year  of  his  age,  and 
in  great  peace  and  resignation.  His  fellow-laborers 
pronounce  him  "a  martyr  to  his  work."  "He  was," 
says  our  western  authority,  who  knew  him  well,  "a 
very  remarkable  man,  differing  greatly  from  Finley, 
Young,  and  Gruber,  but  in  moving,  melting  eloquence 
7  Gregg,  p.  177.  8  Minutes,  1842. 


METHOD]  S  T    EP IS C  OPAL    OH  U  R  CH.         3  1  1 

do(  inferior  to  either  of  them.  He  was  tall,  straight, 
and  slim  in  person,  with  great  power  of  endurance.  His 
complexion  was  dark,  his  eyes  black,  deeply  set,  and 
very  expressive.  His  v.. ice  possessed  gnait  compass, 
and  was  perfectly  at  his  control.  At  times  it  would  be 
soft  and  mellow,  then  it  would  become  like  peals  of 
thunder,  01  the  roar  of  a  lion.  Himself  full  of  feeling 
and  interest,  and  possessing  a  wonderful  command  of 
the  feelings  of  others,  he  would  at  times  sway  the  mul- 
titude of  astonished  listeners  like  trees  by  a  hurricane, 
carrying  his  congregation  up  with  him,  until  they  would 
rise  from  their  seats  and  rush  toward  the  speaker,  some 
weeping,  others  shouting,  and  others  falling  like  dead 
men.  He  could  never  contentedly  close  a  quarterly 
meeting  or  a  camp-meeting  without  having  a  big 
break  in  the  ranks  of  the  wicked.  We  will  venture 
the  opinion  that  more  souls,  along  the  southern 
shore  of  Lake  Erie,  have  ^ouq  up  to  shine  like  stars 
in  the  heavenly  sky  through  the  instrumentality  of 
William  Swayze  than  by  that  of  any  other  man  dead 
or  living."  9 

He  had  many  able  young  preachers  under  his  author- 
ity on  this  district  ;  among  them  was  Charles  Elliott, 
whose  important  services  belong  to  dates  beyond  our 
present  chronological  limits,  a  man  ol*  extraordinary 
learning,  of  tireless  labor  through  a  protracted  life, 
and  of  most  genial  character.  He  was  born  in  Ireland, 
in  1792,  where  he  was  early  brought  into  the  Church 
by  Wesley's  itinerants.  Believing  himself  divinely 
[•ailed  to  preach,  he  studied  assiduously;  and  prepared 
himself  for  college,  but  was  refused  admission  to  Dublin 
University  because  he  could  not  subscribe  its  theologi- 
cal tests.      He  came  to  the  I  toted  States  a  local  preacher 

L7& 


842  HISTORY    OF    THE 

in  1814,  and  plunged  immediately  into  the  woods  of 
Ohio.  In  1819  the  Ohio  Conference  received  him  on 
probation,  and  sent  him,  with  Thomas  A.  Morris,  (after- 
ward bishop,)  to  Zanesville  Circuit,  under  the  presiding 
eldership  of  Jacob  Young.  The  next  year  he  appears 
in  our  present  field  on  the  Erie  Circuit.10  For  years  he 
was  a  principal  founder  of  the  Church  as  circuit  preacher 
and  presiding  elder  in  these  regions,  and  one  year  he 
spent  as  missionary  among  the  Upper  Sandusky  Indians. 
But  his  superior  education  fitted  him  for  more  exigent 
services.  From  1827  to  1831  he  was  Professor  of  Lan- 
guages in  Madison  College,  which  pertained  to  the 
Pittsburgh  Conference.  After  presiding  two  years 
more  on  Uniontown  District,  he  was  appointed  editor 
of  the  Pittsburgh  Conference  Journal;  in  1836  editor 
of  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  at  Cincinnati ;  in 
1848  presiding  elder  of  Cincinnati  District;  in  1852 
again  editor  of  the  Western  Christian  Advocate;  in 
1856  president  of  Iowa  Wesleyan  University;  in  1860 
editor  of  the  Central  Christian  Advocate,  at  St.  Louis, 
where  he  courageously  maintained  the  loyal  party  dur- 
ing the  war  of  the  rebellion,  while  surrounded  with  and 
menaced  by  treason.  He  subsequently  served  the  Iowa 
Wesleyan  University  till  the  infirmities  of  age  required 
him  to  retire  in  1866.  Besides  his  fragmentary  writings, 
(almost  innumerable  editorials,  and  other  contributions 
to  the  periodical  literature  of  the  Church,)  he  has  writ- 
ten "Delineations  of  Roman  Catholicism,"  a  standard 
work,  republished  in  England  ;  "Sinfulness  of  American 
Slavery,"  an  exhaustive  investigation  of  the  subject ; 
and  the  "  History  of  the  Great  Secession  "  of  the  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church,  South,  from  the  parent  body  in 
1844,  a  large  volume,  in  which  the  history  of  that  mo 
w  Gregg,  p.  182. 


HETHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  343 

mentous  proceeding  and  of  the  antecedent  ecclesiastical 
controversy  on  Blavery  is  thoroughly  given. 

Alfred  Brunson  was  one  of  his  successful  colaborers 
in  the  Erie  country.  He  was  bom  in  Connecticut  in 
1703,  and  converted  in  1809  at  Carlisle,  Penn.,  whither 
he  had  gone  "a  runaway  apprentice"  from  Xew  En- 
gland, a  wayward  youth,  like  so  many  others  whom  the 
powerful  ministrations  of  Methodism  arrested  and  con- 
verted into  useful  men.  He  was  brought  into  the 
Church  under  the  labors  of  Jacob  Gruber,  returned  to 
Connecticut,  purchased  the  time  of  his  apprenticeship., 
joined  Jesse  Lee's  first  eastern  class,  and  was  licensed 
to  exhort  in  1810.  In  1812  he  moved  to  Ohio,  spent  a 
year  in  the  army  under  General  Harrison,  was  licensed 
to  preach  in  1815  by  Jacob  Young,  and  called  out  to 
travel,  by  Fmley,  in  1818,  when  he  formed  the  Huron 
Circuit,  Ohio.  In  1819  he  was  sent  to  the  Erie  Circuit 
by  Swayze,  and  was  signally  successful,  reporting  an 
increase  of  three  hundred  members.  In  1820  he  was 
received  into  the  Ohio  Conference,  and  appointed  to 
Mahoning  Circuit.  During  these  early  years  he  labo- 
riously extended  the  denomination,  forming  many  new 
societies.  He  traveled  subsequently  for  some  time  at 
large,  and  after  serving  the  Church  thirteen  years 
"with  distinguished  ability  on  circuits  and  stations" 
in  remoter  part-  of  the  West,  reappeared  on  the 
scene  of  his  first  travel-  as  presiding  elder,  hi  \-->~> 
lit*  was  transferred  to  the  Illinois  Conference,  and, 
placing  his  family  at  Prairie  dn  Chien,  "spent 
several  years  as  a  missionary  among  the  Indians 
on  the  CTpper  Mississippi;  then  was  presiding  eldei 
a  whik-,  then  Btate  legislator,  then  returned  to  the 
regular    work    <>f    the    ministry."         He    was    chap- 

"  <jr^%  i 


344:  HISTORY    OF    THE 

lain  in  the  army  in  1862,  and  retired  to  the  super- 
annuated ranks  in  1864,  "a  veteran  of  long  and  useful 
services." 

By  1820  Methodism  was  thoroughly  established  in  all 
this  country,  with  districts  and  circuits  belonging,  some 
to  the  Genesee,  some  to  the  Baltimore,  others  to  the 
Virginia,  and  still  others  to  the  Ohio  Conferences ; 
more  than  half  a  hundred  itinerants  were  sounding  the 
gospel  among  the  mountains  and  valleys  from  Lake 
Erie  to  far  into  Western  Virginia,  and  thousands  of 
zealous  members  were  rallying  into  classes  and  incipient 
Churches.  They  were  laying  the  foundations  of  the 
Erie,  Pittsburgh,  and  Western  Virginia  Conferences. 

Passing  further  westward,  into  the  "great  North- 
western Territory,"  we  again  meet  Quinn,  whom  we 
have  so  often  followed  over  the  ground  just  surveyed, 
but  who  had  now  been  borne  away  by  the  surges  of  emi- 
gration. In  1804  we  find  him  traveling  the  Hockhock- 
ing  Circuit,  Ohio,  an  immense  field,  comprising  not  only 
all  the  settlements  of  that  river,  but  those  of  the  Mus- 
kingum, and  of  the  Sciota  from  the  high  bank  below 
Chillicothe  as  far  up  as  the  site  of  Columbus,  and  those 
also  of  many  other  streams.  He  was  still  a  pioneer  and 
founder,  forming  societies  in  almost  all  the  sparse  com- 
munities. His  family  was  placed  in  a  cabin,  exposed  to 
Indians,  and,  in  his  occasional  visits  home,  he  had  to 
carry  flour  to  them  more  than  forty  miles.  He  went 
through  the  country  scattering  the  "  good  seed  "  of  the 
gospel  broadcast.  Occasionally  one  of  the  bishops 
reached  and  cheered  him.  Whatcoat  found  his  way 
thither.  "I  shall  never  forget,"  says  the  itinerant, 
"  the  sweet  and  heavenly  smile  with  which  he  met  me. 
While  holding  my  hand  he  said,  '  I  first  found  thy  foot- 
steps on  the  Lake  Shore  in  1801 ;  next  I  found  thee  :n 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  345 

Winchester,  Va.,  in  1802  ;  then  met  thee  at  the  altar,  in 
Light-street,  Baltimore,  in  1803;  and  now  I  find  thee 
here  !  "Well,  we  must  endure  hardships  as  good  soldiers 
of  the  cross.  The  toils  and  privations  of  itinerancy  are 
great ;  but  Christ  has  said,  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  to  the  end  of  the  world.'" 

Thence  Quinn  passed  to  Sciota  Circuit,  where  he  had 
about  thirty  appointments,  the  nearest  being  fifty  miles 
from  his  family.  Emigrants  from  Kentucky  were  now 
pouring  into  this  region,  and  among  them  were  many 
zealous  Methodists.  At  one  of  his  meetings  "a  very 
dignified  and  elderly  looking"  woman,  a  stranger, 
remained  to  attend  the  class,  in  which  she  said,  "with 
a  full  soul,  and  with  eyes  swimming  in  tears,  '  I  am, 
through  the  infinite  mercy  of  God,  a  child  of  his,  and, 
by  blessed  experience,  know  I  enjoy  the  pardoning  love 
of  the  Saviour.  I  am  a  widow,  recently  from  Ken- 
tucky. I  have  a  large  family  of  children.  I  have 
traveled  nine  or  ten  miles  to  enjoy  this  means  of  grace, 
and  to  invite  you  to  preach  in  my  cabin  for  the  benefit 
of  my  children  and  my  unconverted  neighbors.'  Her 
words  were  with  power,  and  it  was  manifest  that  the 
love  of  Christ  constrained  her,  that  she  was  filled  with 
the  Holy  Ghost.  While  she  spoke,  the  same  flame 
was  kindled  in  the  hearts  of  others,  and  some  shouted 
aloud  foj  joy.  After  the  class  Quinn  learned  that  the 
strangei  was  Jane  Trimble,  mother  to  Governor  Trim- 
ble, and  grandmother  to  Joseph  M.  Trimble.  On  his 
next  round  he  preached  at  her  double  cabin,  on  Clear 
Creek,  three  miles  nortli  of  Hillsboro.  At  this  meeting, 
it  is  probable,  no  prole— or  of  religion  was  present 
sept  the  pious  widow  and  the  preacher.  Alter  the 
sermon,  as  th  -  to  meet,  he  Btated  that  it 

w  is  his  last  round  on  the  circuit,  and,  as  he  bad  soon  t<> 


346  HISTORY    OF    THE 

leave  for  Conference,  he  could  not  preach  to  them  any 
more,  but  that  his  successors  would.  He  then  sung  one 
of  the  songs  of  Zion.  At  that  period  his  voice  was  most 
melodious  and  sweet.  The  tones  of  the  music,  accom- 
panied with  a  holy  unction,  melted  every  heart.  While 
singing,  he  passed  through  the  room,  and  shook  hands 
with  every  one  present.  All  were  more  or  less  affected. 
Young  Mrs.  Trimble,  first  wife  of  Allen  Trimble,  and 
mother  of  Joseph  M.,  though  once  a  professor  of  re- 
ligion, became  conscious  of  her  backsliding  and  luke- 
warmness,  and  the  absolute  necessity  of  the  reclaiming 
grace  of  God.  Her  anguish  of  spirit  was  so  great 
she  could  conceal  it  no  longer.  She  first  went  out 
of  the  room ;  but,  finding  there  no  means  of  relief  to 
her  distressed  soul,  she  soon  returned,  and  kneeled 
down  at  a  seat.  Many  hearts  perhaps  sympathized 
with  her,  but  there  were  but  two  to  pray  for  her.  They 
wore,  however,  efficient  suppliants,  and,  having  power 
with  God,  they  soon  prevailed.  In  a  short  time  the 
earnest  seeker  was  powerfully  reclaimed ;  and  such  was 
the  clear  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  assuring  her  that  her 
soul  was  restored  to  the  favor  of  God,  that  she  praised 
the  Lord  with  but  little  intermission  till  midnight.  In 
a  few  years  she  passed  away  in  holy  triumph,  and  now 
awaits  the  arrival  of  her  friends  in  heaven."  ia 

The  venerable  Jane  Trimble  became  a  "mother  in 
Israel"  to  the  Methodists  of  the  Northwestern  Territory. 
Her  family,  that  of  her  son  Governor  Trimble,  and  of 
her  grandson,  Joseph  M.  Trimble,  (one  of  the  missionary 
secretaries  of  the  Church,)  have  been  identified  with 
nearly  the  entire  history  of  the  denomination  in  Ohio. 
She  was  an  extraordinary  woman.  Born  in  Virginia 
in  1755,  on  t  le  very  borders  of  civilization,  she  was 
12  Wright's  Life  of  Quinn,  p.  95. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  347 

familiar,   from  childhood,  with   the   warwhoop  of  the 

Bayage."  Several  of  her  family  perished  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary and  Indian  wars.  In  1784  she  emigrated  to 
Kentucky,  whither  her  husband  had  gone  to  lay  out  a 
farm  and  build  a  tog-cabin.  "She  traveled,"  says  her 
biographer,  u  on  horseback,  carrying  her  eldest  child 
behind  her,  and  her  little  boy,  Allen,  eleven  months 
old,  in  her  lap.  On  reaching  Clinch  River  the  stream 
<*-as  found  swollen  by  recent  rains,  and  the  swift  cur- 
rent dashed  over  huge  rocks.  She  was  leading  the 
company  of  females,  and,  trusting  in  God,  and  commit- 
ting all  her  interests  to  him,  she  urged  her  steed  into 
the  rapid  stream,  and  reached  the  opposite  shore  in 
safety,  amid  the  prayers  and  shouts  of  those  who 
watched  her  progress.  The  remainder  of  the  company 
crossed  by  a  ford  further  up  the  river."  General  Knox, 
who  convoyed  the  train,  and  witnessed  the  feat,  and 
her  noble  conduct  throughout  the  journey,  applauded 
her  as  equaling  in  courage  and  presence  of  mind  the 
women  of  Sparta. 

For  fifteen  years  she  lived,  surrounded  by  Indian 
perils,  about  ten  miles  from  a  "  station,"  near  the  site 
of  Lexington,  educating  her  children  and  servants  with 
the  ability  and  dignity  of  a  true  Christian  matron.  She 
possessed  a  remarkably  vigorous  mind,  was  familiar, 
there  in  the  backwoods,  with  the  great  English  poets, 
and  had  the  four  gospels  entirely  in  her  memory,  ac- 
quired when  she  was  but  fifteen  years  old.  Some  of 
the  writings  of  Fletcher  fell  into  her  hands,  and  she 
became  a  Methodist  in  1700.  Her  husband  determined 
to  posh  on  farther  with  the  movement  of  emigration, 
and  purchased  Lands  in  Ohio,  but  died  before  the  family 
started  for  their  new  borne.     The  noble  widow  led  her 

"Disu;  New  York,  1881. 

D-  2  * 


348  HISTORY    OF    THE 

eight  children  thither,  and  there,  in  Highland  County, 
welcomed  Quinn,  and  formed  one  of  the  first  Sunday- 
schools  in  the  state.  Every  interest  of  the  Church,  es- 
pecially its  missions  to  the  aborigines,  had  her  hearty 
co-operation  through  the  remaiuder  of  her  long  life 
She  saw  all  the  Northwestern  Territory  overspread  by 
her  denomination,  her  great  state  organized,  the  infant 
son,  whom  she  had  carried  on  her  steed  to  the  West,  its 
chief  magistrate,  and  died  under  his  roof  in  1839,  aged 
more  than  eighty-four  years,  having  been  a  devoted 
Methodist  nearly  fifty  years.  She  was  not  only  one  of 
the  best,  but  one  of  the  ablest  women  who  have  adorned 
her  Church  or  country,  a  befitting  associate  of  Mary 
Tiffin,  Mrs.  General  Russell,  and  similar  "  elect  ladies  " 
of  the  Church  in  the  wilderness. 

Throughout  the  remainder  of  the  present  period 
Quinn  continued  to  labor  in  Ohio  with  great  success: 
on  Muskingum  District  in  1808,  Scioto  District  in  1812, 
Fairfield  Circuit  in  1816,  Pickaway  Circuit  1817,  at 
Cincinnati  in  1818,  and  at  Chillicothe  in  1820.  Later  in 
life,  in  reviewing  his  work,  he  wrote :  "  In  each  of  these 
fields  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that,  during  the  last 
forty  years,  thousands  of  redeemed  sinners  have  been 
called,  justified,  sanctified,  and  taken  home  to  heaven, 
while  thousands  more,  to  the  third  or  fourth  generation, 
are  still  on  the  way.  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  for 
what  my  eyes  have  seen  !  If  the  men  that  labored  and 
suffered  here  were  unlearned  in  the  classics,  and,  there- 
fore, in  the  judgment  of  some,  incompetent  ministers, 
yet  hath  the  great  Head  of  the  Church,  through  their 
instrumentality,  given  to  his  people  and  the  world 
many  competent  ministers,  who  have  been,  and  still 
are,  both  burning  and  shining  lights.  If  Chenango 
Circuit,  formed  in  1800  by  Peter  B,  Davis,  gave  the 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH.         349 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church  her  senior  bishop,  (Rob- 
erts,)  Guyandotte,  formed  in  1803  by  William  Steel, 
and  traveled  in  1804  by  Asa  Shinn,  furnished  her  with 
her  junior  bishop,  (Morris;)  and  if  Kanawha,  Mus- 
kingum, Hockhocking,  etc.  have  not  sent  out  bishops, 
the\  have  sent  out  scores  of  deacons  and  elders,  and 
with  them  a  goodly  number  of  scholars  and  profes- 
sional men;  but  the  preacher-making  prerogative  still 
belongs  to  Christ.  O,  Methodists,  never  forget  this  ! 
I  may  have  attended  and  superintended  one  hundred 
and  thirty  or  forty  camp-meetings,  and  witnessed  most 
powerful  displays  of  God's  amazing  grace,  in  the  con- 
viction and  happy  conversion  of  some  thousands  of 
souls.  At  first  we  used  to  erect  two  stands,  with  seats 
at  each,  one  in  the  encampment,  and  the  other  some 
twenty  or  thirty  rods  distant,  and  no  altar  at  either. 
At  these  we  had  preaching  alternately  through- the  day, 
but  only  the  one  in  the  encampment  was  illumiuated  and 
occupied  at  night.  Each  public  service  was  followed 
by  a  prayer-meeting,  which  was  not  to  be  broken  off  to 
make  way  for  preaching  ;  but  the  trumpet  was  sounded 
at  the  other  stand,  whither  all  who  wished  to  hear 
preaching  were  wont  to  repair.  Here  also  a  prayer-meet- 
ing ensued,  and  bo  alternately  through  the  day.  There 
were  no  altars,  no  'mourners1  benches,'  or  'anxious 
ts5  in  those  day-,  nor  were  any  invitations  given  to 
seekers  of  salvation  to  present  themselves  for  the  prayers 
of  the  Church;  but  soon  after  the  commencement  of  the 
prayer  meeting,  praying  and  singing  groups  and  circles 
were  seen  and  heard  throughout  the  encampment,  even 
to  the  outskirts  of  tin-  congregation  ;  and  there  was  no 
I  difficulty  in  keeping  pretty  good  order,  for  an 
awful  Bense  of  the  majesty  and  glory  of  God  often  ap- 
■  1  to  pervade  the  whole  assembly.     As  an  evidence 


350  HISTORY    OV    THE 

of  the  great  good  resulting  from  camp-meetings,  it  is  a 
fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  members,  and  many 
eminently  useful  ministers,  in  the  western  country, 
have  been  brought  to  a  knowledge  of  salvation  at  these 
meetings."  Burke,  Shinn,  Oglesby,  Sale,  Lakin,  Parker, 
William  Young,  Lotspeich,  Lasley,  Manley,  Cummins, 
and  many  other  energetic  men,  soon  to  be  noticed,  were 
colaborers  of  Quinn  in  these  regions,  throughout  these 
years. 

From  Ohio  the  systematic  work  of  the  Church  ex- 
tended westward  over  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri. 

Indiana  territory  was  constituted  in  1800;  in  1805  it 
was  divided  by  the  organization  of  Michigan  territory, 
and  in  1809  that  of  Illinois  was  detached  from  it. 

In  1802  the  first  Indiana  Methodist  society  was  formed, 
at  Gassoway,  in  "  Clark's  Grant,"  Nathan  Robertson 
being  the  first  Methodist  of  the  territory.  Two  years 
later  there  was  an  Illinois  mission.  Whitewater  Cir- 
cuit was  formed  in  1807,  with  Thomas  Hellams  for  its 
preacher,  and  sixty-seven  members ;  Silver  Creek  in 
1808,  and  Vincennes  in  1810.  In  1815  there  were,  in 
the  entire  territory,  Whitewater,  Silver  Creek,  Illinois, 
Little  Wabash,  Vincennes,  and  Lawrenceburgh  Circuits, 
having  one  thousand  seven  hundred  members  and  seven 
preachers.  The  latter  were  John  Strange,  W.  M.  Hunt, 
Shadrack  Ruark,  John  Scripps,  John  Shrader,  James 
Koland,  and  W.  C.  Harbesson. 

By  the  end  of  our  present  period  there  were  in  the 
same  territory  twenty-six  preachers  and  eight  thousand 
members.  By  the  end  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  cen-. 
tury  they  had  so  increased  that  there  were  in  Michigan 
four,  in  Illinois  eighteen,  and  in  Indiana  twenty-eight 
itinerants,  making  forty  preachers  and  fourteen  thousand 
members.     Seven  years  later  the  increase  was,  in  Michi- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUECH.  351 

gan,  eight  preachers  and  or,,  thousand  six  hundred 
members;  in  Illinois,  forty-four  preachers,  ten  thousand 
members;  and  in  Indiana,  sixty  preachers  and  twenty 
thousand  members.  In  1832  was  formed  the  Indiana 
Conference.  For  twelve  years  the  entire  state  ras  in 
one  Conference,  which  was  tirst  divided  in  1844,  when 
it  reported  sixty-six  thousand  members,  two  hundred 
traveling  preachers,  and  four  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
local  preachers.  In  our  day  (18GG)  there  are  in  the 
state  four  Conferences*,  four  hundred  traveling  preach- 
ers, seven  hundred  local  preachers,  and  ninety  thousand 
members.  "This  state,  though  it  bears  a  name  signi- 
tying  'domain  of  the  Indian,'  which,  when  given,  was 
literally  true,  has  for  its  more  than  one  million  three 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants,  two  thou- 
sand niue  hundred  and  thirty-three  places  of  worship, 
one  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty-six  of  which  are 
furnished  by  the  Methodists,  with  accommodations  for 
more  than  one  million,  and  valued  at  nearly  four  million 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  state  has  six  thou- 
sand live  hundred  free  schools,  one  thousand  one  hundred 
and  twenty -three  Sabbat  ii-scliools,  more  than  one  hund- 
red higher  schools  or  academies  and  colleges,  of  which 
the  Methodists  furnish  one  third.*'  u 

The  extension  of  Methodism  northwestward,  into  the 
Michigan  territory,  was  slow.  The  fruits  of  the  labors 
of  Bangs.  Case,  and  Mitchell,  lingered  in  Detroit  till 
Joseph  Hickox  was  appointed  to  the  circuit  in  1815; 
the  recent  war  had  demoralized  the  whole  country,  and 
Hickox  could  discover  only  seven  Methodiste  in  Detroit, 
A  society, which  had  been  organized  at  Monroe  in  181  I, 
he  found  entirely  broken  up,  and  he  waa  the  only 
Protestant  preacher  in  the  territory  for  at  least  (me 
"Rer.  Dr.  Aaron  Wood's  Cenl  con.    Chicago,  1866, 


352  HISTORY    OF    THE 

year.  There  was  not  yet  a  single  Protestant  chapel  in  it. 
But,  after  the  war,  emigration,  and,  with  it,  Methodism, 
began  to  pour  into  the  country.  "As  the  population 
extended,  our  ministers,"  says  a  local  authority,  "  fol- 
lowed them,  wading  through  the  swamps  and  marshes, 
and  striking  the  Indian  trails,  so  that  the  people  have 
never  been  left  for  any  considerable  time  without  the 
gospel.  The  first  preachers  were  sent  from  the  New 
York  Conference,  the  next  from  the  Genesee,  the  third 
from  the  Ohio.  In  1836  the  Michigan  Conference  was 
created — it  included  a  part  of  Ohio;  but  in  1840  the 
Ohio  portion  was  separated,  leaving  Michigan  alone. 
At  this  time  there  were  only  seventy-eight  ministers 
and  preachers,  and  eleven  thousand  five  hundred  and 
twenty-three  members.  Though  this  seems  small,  we 
must  consider  that  the  population  was  sparse.  Now 
we  have  about  three  hundred  ministers,  and  thirty-two 
thousand  members.  The  first  Protestant  church  erected 
in  Michigan  was  built  near  Detroit  in  1818.  It  was 
made  of  logs,  and  was  considered  a  fine  affair;  but  now 
we  find  substantial  churches  dotting  all  the  country. 
These  are  but  indications  of  the  thrift  and  spiritual 
prosperity  of  our  people.  This  great  advance  in  nu- 
merical and  financial  strength  has  not  been  secured 
without  toil  and  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  those  who 
have  led  on  the  sacramental  host.  Nathan  Bangs 
traveled  from  the  city  of  New  York  to  Detroit  on 
horseback;  William  Case  crossed  the  Detroit  River 
sometimes  on  floating  ice,  jumping  from  cake  to  cake; 
Joseph  Hickox  braved  dangers  from  hostile  Indians  and 
rude  British  soldiers ;  others  have  slept  in  the  woods, 
and  carried  an  ax  to  blaze  their  way  through  the  forest. 
But  all  have  been  borne  up  by  the  divine  presence."  Is 

w  Rev.  E.  H.  Pilcher,  in  Northwestern  Christian  Adv.,  Sept.  d  1866. 
d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  35o 


CHAPTER  IX. 

METHODISM    IX   THE  WEST,  CONTINUED:    1804-1820. 

Progress  in  Illinois  —  Jes-e  Walker  —  His  Pioneer  Adventures  — 
M'Kendree  and  Walker  in  the  Wilderness  —  Walker's  Camp-meeting 
—  His  &  — He  enten  Missouri  —  Oglesby  and  Travis  there  — 

Missouri  Conference  Organized  —  Walker's  Sufferings  —  He  Intro- 
duces Methodism  into  St.  Louis  —  His  Determined  Struggles  there  — 
He  goes  to  the  Indian  Trihes  —  Labors  at  Chicago  —  His  Death  and 
Character  —  Samuel  Parker,  "the  Cicero  of  the  West'' —  James 
AsV»'=  extraordinary  Character  and  Labors  — He  Attacks  Slavery 
and  Whisky  —  Peter  Cartwright'e  Early  Life  —  Remarkable  Scene  at 
a  Quarterly  Meeting  — His  extensive  Services —  David  Young  — 
John  Collins  —  Judge  M'Lean's  Conversion  and  Character. 

We  have  seen  the  extension  of  the  itinerant  ministry  to 
the  Illinois  territory,  by  Benjamin  Young,  in  1804,  and 
his  extreme  sufferings  there.  He  had  been  preceded, 
however,  by  less  known  laborers.  The  "  real  pioneer  of 
the  Church,"'  says  our  best  living  Illinois  authority,  "  was 

\  Jo-eph  Ogle,  who  went  thither  in  1785.  The  first 
Methodist  preacher  •  ph  Lillard,  who,  in  1793, 

formed  a  cla^  in  St.  Clair  County,  and  appointed  Cap- 
tain Ogle  leader.  The  next  Methodist  preacher  was 
John  Clarke,  who  originally  traveled  in  South  Carolina 

.  1701  to  1 790.  when  he  withdrew  on  account  of 
slavery.  lie  was  the  first  man  that  preached  the  gos- 
pel  west  of  the  Mississippi,  in  1798.  Hosea  Riggs  was 
the  first  Methodist  preacher  that  settled  in  Illinois,  and 
he  r  uized  the  class  at  Captain  Og] 

formed  by  Lillard,  which  had  dropped  its  regular  m 

Prom  179-  tin  pilar 

preacher  in  Illinois  till  1804;  then  Benjamin  Young 


D04  Ii  !  ST  OB  V     OF    THE 

sent  as  a  missionary.  In  the  fall  of  1805  he  returned 
sixty-seven  members,  and  Joseph  Oglesby  was  ap- 
pointed to  succeed  him  on  the  Illinois  Circuit."1 

A  notable  character  appeared  on  the  scene  in  1806, 
a  man  whose  name  is  identified  for  years  with  the  west- 
ward progress  of  Methodism.  Jesse  Walker  was  a 
native  of  North  Carolina,2  but  early  emigrated  to  Ten- 
nessee. He  became  a  member  of  the  Western  Confer- 
ence in  1802,  and  traveled  circuits  in  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky  for  about  four  years,  before  his  indomitable 
spirit  led  him  forth  to  pioneer  the  Church  through  Illi- 
nois and  Missouri.  His  ministry  in  these  first  years  was 
preparatory  for  the  great  work  of  his  ensuing  life ;  few 
men  in  Kentucky  or  Tennessee  equaled  him  in  labor 
or  hardships.  One  of  his  contemporaries  says:  "He 
was  a  character  perfectly  unique  ;  he  had  no  duplicate. 
He  was  to  the  Church  what  Daniel  Boone  was  toy  the 
early  settler,  always  first,  always  ahead  of  everybody 
else,  preceding  all  others  long  enough  to  be  the  pilot  oi 
the  new-comer.  He  is  found  first  in  Davidson  County, 
Tenn.  He  lived  within  about  three  miles  of  the  then 
village  of  Nashville,  and  was  at  that  time  a  man  of 
family,  poor,  and,  to  a  considerable  extent,  without 
education.  He  was  admitted  on  trial  in  1802,  and  ap- 
pointed to  the  Red  River  Circuit.  But  the  Minutes,  in 
his  case,  are  no  guide,  from  the  fact  that  he  was  sent  by 
the  bishops  and  presiding  elders  in  every  direction 
where  new  work  was  to  be  cut  out.  His  natural  vigor 
was  almost  superhuman.  He  did  not  seem  to  require 
food  and  rest  as  other  men  ;  no  day's  journey  was  long 
enough  to  tire  him ;  no  fare  too  poor  for  him  to  live 

1  Peter  Cartwright's  "Autobiography,"  p.  167. 

2  Bishop  Morris,  in  Sprague,  p.  380.     There  is  no  record  of  his  early 
life ;  Minutes  1836-7. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        35o 

on  ;  to  him,  in  traveling,  roads  and  paths  were  useless 
things — he  'blazed'  out  his  own  course;  no  way  was 
too  bad  for  him  —  if  his  horse  could  not  carry  him 
he  led  him,  and  when  his  horse  could  not  follow,  he 
w.»uLl  leave  him,  and  take  it  on  foot;  and  if  night  and 
a  cabin  did  not  come  together,  he  would  pass  the  night 
alone  in  the  wilderness,  which  with  him  was  no  uncom- 
mon occurrence.  Looking  up  the  frontier  settler  was 
his  chief  delight ;  and  he  found  his  way  through  hill 
and  brake  as  by  instinct  —  he  was  never  lost;  and, 
a-  Bishop  M'Kendree  once  said  of  him,  in  addressing 
an  annual  Conference,  he  never  complained.  As  the 
Chnrch  moved  West  and  Xorth  it  seemed  to  bear 
Walker  before  it.  Every  time  you  could  hear  from 
him  he  was  still  farther  on;  and  when  the  settlements 
of  the  white  man  seemed  to  take  shape  and  form,  he 
was  next  heard  of  among  the  Indian  tribes  of  the 
Northwest."  3 

His  appointment  to  Illinois  in  1S06  was  a  mission  to 
the  whole  territory.  The  region  between  Kentucky 
and  the  interior  of  this  new  field  was  yet  a  wilderness, 
and  difficult  to  travel.  M'Kendree,  the  presiding  elder, 
>ut.  therefore,  with  his  pioneer  itinerant,  to  assist 
him  on  the  way.  They  journeyed  on  horseback,  sleeping 
in  the  woods  on  their  saddle  blankets,  and  cooking  their 
meals  under  trees.  ';  It  was  a  time."  say-  an  authority 
who  knew  them  both,  "of  much  rain,  the  channels  were 
tull  to  overflowing,  and  no  Less  than  -oven  times  their 
horses  swum  the  rapid  streams  with  their  riders  and 
baggage;  but  the  travelers,  by  carrying  their  saddle- 
-  '»n  their  shoulders,  kept  their  Bibles  and  part  of 
their  clothe-  above  the  water.  This  was  truly  a  peril- 
on.-  business.     At  night  they  had  opportunity  not  only 

*  Biographical  - 


356  HISTOKY    OF    THE 

of  drying  their  wet  clothes  and  taking  res  ,  but  of 
prayer  and  Christian  converse.  In  due  time  they 
reached  their  destination  safely.  M'Kendree  remained 
a  few  weeks,  visited  the  principal  neighborhoods,  aided 
in  forming  a  plan  of  appointments  for  the  mission,  arid 
the  new  settlers  received  them  with  much  favor." 4 

Walker,  alone  in  the  territory,  moved  over  it  courage- 
ously, till  the  winter  compelled  him  to  suspend  his  cir 
cuit  plan,  and  commence  operating  from  house  to  house, 
or  rather  from  cabin  to  cabin,  ''passing  none  without 
calling  and  delivering  the  gospel  message.  He  was 
guided  by  the  indications  of  Providence,  and  took  shel- 
ter for  the  night  wherever  he  could  obtain  it,  so  as  to 
resume  his  labor  early  the  next  day,  and  he  continued 
this  course  of  toil  till  about  the  close  of  the  winter. 
The  result  was  a  general  revival  with  the  opening 
spring,  when  the  people  were  able  to  reassemble,  and  he 
to  resume  his  regular  plan.  Shortly  after  this  a  young 
preacher  was  sent  to  his  relief,  and,  being  thus  rein- 
forced, he  determined  to  include  in  the  plan  of  the  sum- 
mer's campaign  a  camp  meeting,  which  was  the  more 
proper,  because  the  people  had  no  convenient  place  for 
worship  but  the  forest.  The  site  selected  was  near  a 
beautiful  spring  of  pure  water.  All  friends  of  the  en- 
terprise were  invited  to  meet  upon  the  spot,  on  a  certain 
day,  with  axes,  saws,  augers,  and  hammers  for  the  work 
of  preparation.  The  ground  was  cleared,  and  dedicated 
by  prayer  as  a  place  of  public  worship.  Walker  took  th* 
lead  of  the  preparatory  work,  and  tents,  seats,  and  pul- 
pit were  all  arranged  before  the  congregation  assembled. 
It  was  the  first  experiment  of  the  kind  in  that  country  ; 
but  it  worked  well.  After  the  public  services  com- 
menced there  was  no  dispute  among  preachers  or  people 
4  Bishop  Morris,  in  Sprague,  p.  381. 


METHODIST     KIMSCOPAL    CHURCH.  SOt 

as  to  the  choice  of  pulpit  orators.  The  senior  preached, 
acd  the  junior  exhorted ;  then  the  junior  preached,  and 
the  senior  exhorted ;  and  so  on  through  the  meeting  of 
several  days  and  nights,  the  intervals  between  sermons 
beiug  occupied  with  prayer  and  praise.  The  meeting- 
did  not  close  till,  as  Walker  expressed  it,  '  the  last  stick 
of  timber  was  used  up,'  meaning,  till  the  last  sinner  left 
on  the  ground  was  converted.  The  impulse  which  the 
work  received  from  that  camp-meeting  was  such  that  it 
extended  through  most  of  the  settlements  embraced  in 
the  mission,  which  was  constantly  enlarging  its  borders 
as  the  people  moved  into  the  territory.  Walker  visited 
one  neighborhood  near  the  Illinois  River,  containing 
some  sixty  or  seventy  souls.  They  all  came  to  hear 
him;  and,  having  preached  three  successive  days,  he 
read  the  General  Rules,  and  proposed  that  as  many  of 
them  as  desired  to  unite  to  serve  God,  according  to  the 
Bible,  should  come  forward  and  make  it  known.  The 
most  prominent  man  among  them  rose  to  his  feet,  and 
Baid,  'Sir,  I  trust  we  will  all  unite  here  with  you  to 
serve  God;'  then  walked  forward,  and  all  the  rest  fol- 
lowed. As  the  result  of  his  first  year's  experiment  in 
Illinois,  two  hundred  and  eighteen  Church  members 
were  reported  in  the  printed  Minutes."6 

His  next  field  Mas  Missouri,  and  he  continued  to 
travel  thenceforward,  alternately  in  each  territory, 
down  to  1*12,  when,  as  presiding  elder,  he  took  com- 
mand of  all  the  Methodist  interests  of  both;  both  apper- 
ainiog  to  the  Tennessee  Conference.  He  had  charge 
of  districts  in  one  or  the  other  till  1819,  when  he  was 
appointed  Conference  missionary,  that  he  might  range 
about  "breaking  up  uew  ground,*1  a  work  for  which  he 
u  as  mi  gularly  fitted,  and  in  which  he  persisted  for  years. 
-  Bishop  Morris. 


358  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Before  Walker's  arrival,  however,  Methodism  had 
penetrated  Missouri.  Joseph  Oglesby,  who  was  ap- 
pointed to  Illinois  in  1804,  writes  that  in  June  of  1805 
he  "  reconnoitered  the  Missouri  country  to  the  extremity 
of  the  settlements,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Daniel 
Boone,  the  mighty  hunter.  He  preached  frequently 
which  was  novel  to  the  people,  as  he  was  the  first  Meth- 
odist that  had  ever  preached  in  that  territory."  6 

The  first  intimation  that  the  Minutes  give  of  an  ap- 
pointment to  Missouri  is  in  1806,  when  Walker  entered 
Illinois.  John  Travis,  then  a  youth,  recently  admitted 
to  the  Western  Conference,  was  dispatched  immediately 
to  the  Missouri  wilds,  when  the  whole  country  had  but 
about  sixteen  thousand  inhabitants.  His  circuit  per- 
tained to  the  Cumberland  District,  which  comprised 
West  Tennessee,  parts  of  Kentucky,  Indiana,  and  Ar- 
kansas, and  all  Illinois  and  Missouri.  The  young,  pio- 
neer returned  a  hundred  white  and  six  African  members 
at  the  next  Conference,  at  which  two  Missouri  circuits 
were  recorded,  "  Maramack  and  Missouri,"  and  Walker 
and  Edmund  Wilcox  sent  to  them.  Slow  but  steady 
progress  was  made  till  the  field  was  mature  enough  to 
be  constituted  a  Conference  in  1816,  without  a  boundary 
on  the  West,  "but  including  the  last  Methodist  cabin, 
toward  the  setting  sun,"  and  taking  in  all  Missouri  and 
Illinois  and  the  western  part  of  Indiana.7  Its  first  ses- 
sion was  held  in  Shiloh  Meeting-house,  St.  Clair  County, 
111.,  about  ten  miles  from  St.  Louis,  September  23. 
M'Kendree  presided,  and  John  C.  Harbison  acted  as 
secretary.  Its  original  members  were  but  seven,  but, 
before  the  adjournment,  candidates  were  admitted,  en 

6  Life,  etc.,  of  Allen  Wiley,  p.  53.     Cincinnati,  1853. 

7  Papers  on  "the  Origin  of  Methodism  in  Missouri,"  by  Rev.  E.  H. 
Waring,  b   "  Central  Christian  Advocate." 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.  359 

forging  the  little  corps  to  twenty-two.  Seven  of  its 
appointments  were  in  Missouri,  four  in  Indiana,  four  in 
Illinois,  and  one  in  Arkansas,  at  Flat  Springs,  sixty  four 
miles  southwesl  of  Little  Rock.  The  Conference  in- 
cluded three  thousand  and  forty-one  members,  only 
eight  hundred  and  forty  one  of  whom  were  in  Missouri. 
Arkansas  had  one  hundred  and  eight,  Illinois  nine  hund- 
red and  sixty-eight,  Indiana,  one  thousand  one  hundred 
and  twenty  four. 

Walker  was  a  great  sufferer  as  well  as  a  great  laborer 
in  these  fields.  "I  think  it  was  in  the  fall  of  1819," 
Bays  Peter  Cartwright,  "  that  our  beloved  old  Brother 
Walker,  who  had  traveled  all  his  life,  or  nearly  so,  carne 
over  to  our  Tennessee  Conference,  which  sat  in  Xash- 
ville,  to  see  us;  but  O  how  weather  beaten  and  war- 
worn was  he  !  almost,  if  not  altogether,  without  decent 
apparel  to  appear  among  us.  We  soon  made  a  collec- 
tion, and  had  him  a  decent  suit  of  clothes  to  put  on; 
and  never  shall  I  forget  the  blushing  modesty  and 
thankfulness  with  which  he  accepted  that  suit,  and 
never  did  I  and  others  have  a  stronger  verification  of 
our  Lord's  words,  '  That  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive.' :' 8 

Though  Jesse  Walker  was  not  the  first  Methodist 
itinerant  in  Missouri,  he  ranks  as  the  principal  founder 
of  the  denomination  there.  Xo  obstruction  could  with- 
stand  hi-  assaults.  A-  pioneer, circuit  preacher, presiding 
elder,  he  drove  all  opposition  before  him,  and  inspirited 
his  colaborers  with  his  own  energy,  so  that  .Methodism 
effectively  superseded  the  original  Roman  Catholic  pre- 
dominance in  that  country.  In  1820  In-  resolved  to 
plant  it-  standard  in  St.  Louis,  the  Romish  metropolis, 
I  here  the  itinerants  bad  "never  found  rest  for  the  soles 
i  it's  Autobiography,  p.  480. 


860  HISTORY    OF     THE 

of  their  feet."  "  He  commenced  laying  the  train,"  sa)  i 
his  friend  Morris,  "  at  Conference,  appointed  a  time  to 
open  the  campaign  and  begin  the  siege,  and  engaged 
two  young  preachers  of  undoubted  courage,  such  as  he 
believed  would  stand  by  him  'to  the  bitter  end,'  to 
meet  him  at  a  given  time  and  place,  and  to  aid  him  in 
the  difficult  enterprise.  Punctual  to  their  engagement, 
they  all  met,  and  proceeded  to  the  city  together.  When 
they  reached  it  the  territorial  legislature  was  in  session 
there,  and  every  public  place  appeared  to  be  full.  The 
missionaries  preferred  private  lodgings,  but  could  obtain 
none.  Some  people  laughed  at  them,  and  others  cursed 
them  to  their  face.  Thus  embarrassed  at  every  point, 
they  rode  into  the  public  square,  and  held  a  consultation 
on  their  horses.  The  prospect  was  gloomy  enough,  and 
every  avenue  seemed  closed  against  them.  The  young 
preachers  expressed  strong  doubts  as  to  their  being  in 
the  path  of  duty.  Their  leader  tried  to  encourage  them, 
but  in  vain.  They  thought  that  if  the  Lord  had  any 
work  for  them  there  to  do,  there  would  surely  be  some 
way  to  get  to  it.  They  thought  it  best  immediately  to 
return  to  the  place  from  which  they  had  come ;  and, 
though  their  elder  brother  entreated  them  not  to  leave 
him,  they  deliberately  shook  off  the  dust  of  their  feet 
for  a  testimony  against  the  wicked  city,  and,  taking 
leave  of  Walker,  rode  off,  and  left  him  sitting  on  his 
horse.  Perhaps  that  hour  brought  with  it  more 'of  the 
eeling  of  despondency  to  Jesse  Walker  than  1  e  ever 
xperienced  in  any  other  hour  of  his  eventful  life;  and, 
stung  with  disappointment,  he  said  in  his  haste,  '  I  will 
go  to  the  state  of  Mississippi,  and  hunt  up  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  house  of  Israel ;'  and  immediately  turned  his 
horse  in  that  direction,  and  with  a  sorrowful  heart  rode 
off  alone.     Having  proceeded  about  eighteen  miles  lie 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAI     CHURCH.        301 

came  to  a  halt,  and  entered  into  a  soli  oquy  on  this  wise : 
'Was  1  ever  defeated  before  in  this  blessed  work? 
Never.  Did  any  one  ever  trust  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  get  confounded?  No;  and,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  I  will  go  back  and  take  St.  Louis.'  Then,  re- 
versing his  course,  without  seeking  either  rest  or  refresh- 
ment for  man  or  beast,  he  immediately  retraced  his 
steps  to  the  city,  and,  with  some  difficulty,  obtained 
lodgings  in  an  indifferent  inn,  where  he  paid  at  the 
highest  rate  for  everything.  Next  morning  he  com- 
menced a  survey  of  the  city  and  its  inhabitants.  He 
met  with  some  members  of  the  territorial  legislature, 
who  knew  him,  and  said,  c  Why,  Father  Walker,  what 
has  brought  you  here  V '  His  answer  was,  '  I  have  come 
to  take  St.  Louis.'  They  thought  it  a  hopeless  under- 
taking, and,  to  convince  him  that  it  was  so,  remarked 
that  the  inhabitants  wrere  mostly  Catholics  and  infidels, 
very  dissipated  and  wicked,  and  that  there  was  no 
probability  that  a  Methodist  preacher  could  obtain  any 
access  to  them,  and  seriously  advised  him  to  abandon 
the  enterprise  and  return  to  his  family,  then  residing  in 
Illinois.  But  to  all  such  expressions  Walker  returned 
one  answer:  'I  have  come,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  to 
take  St.  Louis,  and,  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  will  do  it.' 
His  first  public  experiment  was  in  a  temporary  place  of 
worship  occupied  by  a  handful  of  Baptists.  There 
were,  however,  but  few  present.  Nothing  special  oc- 
curred, and  he  obtained  leave  to  preach  again.  During 
the  reond  effort  there  were  strong  indications  of  relief- 
Lous  excitement,  and  the  Baptists  actually  closed  their 
doors  against  him.  lie  next  found  a  Large  but  unfin- 
ished dwelling-house,  and  succeeded  in  renting  it  as  it 
for  t>  ii  dollars  a  month.  Passing  by  the  public 
w  some  old  benches  away  at  the 


362  HISTORY    OF    THE 

end  of  the  court  house,  which  had  been  recently  refitted 
with  new  ones.  These  he  obtained  from  the  commis- 
sioner, had  them  put  on  a  dray,  and  removed  to  his 
hired  house,  borrowed  tools,  and  repaired  with  his  own 
hands  such  as  were  broken,  and  fitted  up  his  largest 
room  for  a  place  of  worship.  After  completing  his  ar- 
rangements he  commenced  preaching  regularly  twice  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  occasionally  in  the  evenings  between 
the  Sabbaths.  At  the  same  time  he  gave  notice  that  if 
there  were  any  poor  parents  who  wished  their  children 
taught  to  spell  and  read  he  would  teach  them  five  days 
in  a  week  without  fee  or  reward,  and  if  there  were  any 
who  wished  their  servants  to  learn  he  would  teach  them 
on  the  same  terms  in  the  evenings.  In  order  to  be 
always  on  the  spot,  and  to  render  his  expenses  as  light 
as  possible,  he  took  up  his  abode  in  his  own  hired  house. 
The  chapel  room  was  soon  filled  with  hearers,  and  the 
school  with  children.  In  the  mean  time  he  went  to 
visit  his  family,  and  returned  with  a  horseloadof  pro- 
visions and  bedding,  determined  to  remain  there  and 
push  the  work  till  something  was  accomplished.  Very 
soon  a  work  of  grace  commenced.  About  this  time  an 
event  occurred  that  seemed  at  first  to  be  against  the 
success  of  his  mission,  but  which  eventuated  in  its 
favor.  The  hired  house  changed  hands,  and  he  was 
notified  to  vacate  it  in  a  short  time.  Immediately  he 
conceived  a  plan  for  building  a  small  frame  chapel,  and, 
without  knowing  where  the  funds  were  to  come  from,, 
he  put  the  work  under  contract.  A  citizen,  owning 
land  across  the  Mississippi,  gave  him  leave  to  take  the 
lumber  from  his  forest  as  a  donation.  Soon  the  chapel 
was  raised  and  covered.  The  vestrymen  of  a  small 
Episcopal  church,  then  without  a  minister,  made  him  a 
present  of  their  old  Bible  and  cushion.     They  also  gave 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         363 

him  their  pews,  which  he  accepted  on  condition  of  their 
being  free;  and,  having  unscrewed  the  shutters,  and 
laid  them  by,  lie  lost  no  time  in  transferring  the  open 
pews  to  his  new  chapel.  Xew  friends  came  to  his  relit  f 
in  meeting  his  contracts.  The  chapel  was  finished,  and 
opened  for  public  worship,  and  was  well  filled.  The 
revival  received  a  fresh  impulse,  and,  as  the  result  of 
the  first  year's  experiment,  he  reported  to  Conference  a 
snug  little  chapel  erected  and  paid  for,  a  flourishing 
school,  and  seventy  Church  members  in  St.  Louis.  Of 
course  he  was  regularly  appointed  the  next  year  to  that 
mission  station,  but  without  any  missionary  appropria- 
tion, and  he  considered  it  an  honorable  appointment. 
Thus  '  Father  Walker,'  as  every  one  about  the  city 
called  him,  succeeded  in  taking  St.  Louis,  which,  as  he 
expressed  it,  'had  been  the  very  stronghold  of  devil- 
ism.'  Some  idea  of  the  changes  which  had  been  there 
effected  for  the  better,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact 
that  the  Missouri  Conference  held  its  session  in  that 
city  October  24,  1822,  when  William  Beauchamp  was 
appointed  successor  of  the  indefatigable  Walker.  St. 
Louis,  now  a  large  and  flourishing  city,  is  well  supplied 
with  churches  and  a  church-going  people." 

Having  effectually  broken  the  way  open  for  Method- 
ism in  Missouri,  during  sixteen  years,  Walker,  eager  for 
pioneer  adventures,  went,  in  1823,  to  the  Indian  tribes 
up  tin-  Mississippi,  where  he  labored  till  1830,  when  the 
hero  of  so  many  fields  was  esteemed  the  man  for  other 
new  work,  and  was  appointed  to  the  extreme  North,  to 
Chicago  Mission,  "where  he  succeeded,"  says  Peter 
Cartwright,  "in  planting  Methodism  in  that  then  infant 
cit}-.     In  i-:j1  he  was  Bent  to  the  Des  Plaines  Mission, 

and   organized    many  small   societies  in   that  young  and 

rising  country."     In  i-.;2  there  was  a  Chicago  District 
D— 24  d 


364  HISTORY    OF    THE 

formed,  mostly  of  missionary  ground.  Walker  was 
superintendent  of  this  district,  and  missionary  to  Chi- 
cago town ;  and  although  he  was  stricken  in  years,  and 
well-nigh  worn  out,  having  spent  a  comparatively  long 
life  on  the  frontiers,  yet  the  veteran  had  the  respect  and 
admiration  of  the  whole  community,  and  in  1833  was 
continued  in  the  City  Missionary  Station.  This  year 
closed  his  active  itinerant  life.  "  He  had,"  says  Cart- 
wright,  "  done  effective  service  as  a  traveling  preacher 
for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  had  lived  poor,  and  suf- 
fered much ;  had  won  thousands  of  souls  over  to  Christ, 
and  firmly  planted  Methodism  for  thousands  of  miles 
on  our  frontier  border.  In  1834  he  asked  for  and  ob- 
tained a  superannuated  relation,  in  which  he  lived  till 
the  fifth  of  October,  1835,  and  then  left  the  world  in 
holy  triumph.  He  was  the  first  minister  who,  by  the 
authority  of  the  Methodist  Church,  gave  me  my  first 
permit  to  exhort.  We  have  fought  side  by  side  for 
many  years,  we  have  suffered  hunger  and  want  together, 
we  have  often  wept  and  prayed  and  preached  together; 
I  hope  we  shall  sing  and  shout  together  in  heaven."  9 

He  died,  "  in  confident  hope  of  a  blessed  immortality," 
in  1835.  He  was  five  feet  seven  inches  high,  of  slender 
but  vigorous  frame,  sallow  complexion,  light  hair,  prom- 
inent cheeks,  small  blue  eyes,  a  generous  and  cheerful 
expression ;  and  dressed  always  in  drab-colored  clothes, 
of  the  plainest  Quaker  fashion,  with  a  light-colored 
beaver  hat,  "  nearly  as  large  as  a  ladies'  parasol."  He 
had  extraordinary  aptness  to  win  the  confidence  and 
sympathy  of  "  backwoodsmen ;"  his  friendships  were 
most  hearty,  his  courage  equal  to  any  test,  his  piety 
thorough,  his  talents  as  a  preacher  moderate.  His  great 
talent  was  his  great  character. 

8  Cartwright's  Autobiography,  p.  491. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        365 

Methodism  became  mighty  in  Missouri  Conference, 
numbering  nearly  twenty-four  thousand  members  be- 
fore the  southern  secession  of  1844;  but  that  event 
rent  the  Church  to  pieces;  the  war  of  the  rebellion  still 
further  devastated  the  great  field.  Peace  has  restored 
the  denomination,  and  the  Missouri  Conference  still 
exists,  with  reorganized  plans  of  usefulness. 

During  these  years  men  of  genuine  greatness  of  char- 
acter and  talents  were  continually  rising  up  in  the 
western  itinerancy.  Samuel  Parker,  born  in  New  Jer- 
sey in  1774,  and  converted  in  his  fourteenth  year,  was 
a  man  of  genius,  and  was  called  the  Cicero  of  the  west- 
ern ministry.  After  laboring  four  years  as  a  local 
preacher,  he  was  received  into  the  Western  Conference 
in  1S05.  For  three  years  he  traveled  in  Kentucky,  and 
in  1808  was  sent  to  Miami  Circuit,  Ohio,  which  in- 
cluded Cincinnati.  Here  his  natural  eloquence  attained 
its  climax.  The  people  thronged  from  great  distances 
to  hear  him;  his  word  was  irresistible,  and  "wherever 
he  went,"  says  one  of  his  contemporaries,  "wondering 
and  weeping  audiences  crowded  about  him."10  lie  pos- 
sessed an  exceedingly  musical  voice,  a  clear,  keen  mind, 
an  imagination  which,  though  never  extravagant,  af- 
forded frequent  and  brilliant  illustrations  of  his  subject, 
while  his  ardent  piety  imparted  wonderful  tenderness 
and  power  to  his  appeal-.  Withal,  his  personal  appear- 
ance was  striking  before  he  became  attenuated  with 
disease,  lie  was  nearly  >ix  feet  high,  had  a  remarkably 
intellectual  countenance,  with  a  full  forehead,  and  a 
black,  piercing  eye. 

In  1809  he  became  presiding  elder  on  a  district  which 
included  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  Missouri  "From  the 
White  River,  in  Indiana,  to  the  farthesl   settler  in  Mis- 

>o  Finle\-  -  M  thodfem,  p.  200. 


86o  HISTORY    OF    THE 

souri,"  says  Finley,  "  did  this  herald  of  tho  cross  pro. 
claim  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  "  through  four  years, 
and  "so  'mightily  grew  the  word  of  God,  and  pre- 
vailed,' "  that  the  district  had  to  be  divided.  Its  three 
hundred  and  eighty-two  members,  at  his  beginning,  had 
increased  to  more  than  two  thousand  when  he  left  it. 
He  continued  north  and  west  of  the  Ohio,  with  increas- 
ing influence  and  success,  till  1815,  when  he  was  made 
presiding  elder  i  i  Kentucky,  where  his  great  eloquence 
commanded  general  interest.  In  1819  he  was  appointed 
to  lead  the  itinerants  who  were  extending  the  Church 
in  the  far  southwest,  on  the  memorable  Mississippi  Dis- 
trict. They  needed  such  a  man ;  but  his  health  was 
broken,  and  it  seemed  but  an  appointment  to  martyr- 
dom. He  was  ready  for  it,  nevertheless,  and  when  it 
was  announced,  at  the  close  of  the  Conference,  in  Cin- 
cinnati, "it  seemed,"  says  a  spectator,  "that  a  wave  of 
sympathy  rolled  over  the  whole  Conference."  His 
malady  (pulmonary  consumption)  rapidly  advanced 
when  he  reached  his  new  field.  He  was  never  indeed 
able  to  perform  any  labor  on  the  district.  He  sank 
down  and  died  in  1819.  William  Winans,  whom  he 
had  called  out  to  preach,  in  Ohio,  was  now  in  the  south, 
and  attended  him  in  death,  and  followed  him  to  his 
grave,  in  Washington,  Miss.  "  He  died,"  says  Winans, 
"  not  only  peacefully,  but  triumphantly."  "  Love  in- 
spired his  whole  being,  breathed  from  his  lips,  and 
beamed  with  heavenly  radiance  from  his  countenance." 
James  Axley  has  left  traditions  of  his  character  and 
work  in  the  Church  from  Indiana  to  Louisiana.  A 
fellow-laborer  (himself  one  of  the  most  genuine  products 
of  nature  and  the  West)  has  said  that  Axley  "  was  the 
most  perfect  child  of  nature  I  ever  knew."  "  He  was 
11  Peter  Cartwright,  in  Sprague,  p.  416. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUKUH.         60/ 

born  on  Xew  River,  Va.,  in  1770,  removed,  in  child- 
hood, to  Kentucky,  where  he  became  a  hunter  and 
thrifty  farmer,  joined  the  Methodists  in  1802,  and  in 
1805  entered  the  itinerant  ministry.  He  was  tossed 
about,  with  singular  rapidity,  in  his  appointments,  from 
Tennessee  to  Ohio,  from  Ohio  to  the  Ilolston  Mountains, 
from  Holston  to  Opelousas,  in  Louisiana,  back  again  to 
Ilolston,  then  to  the  Wabash  District,  in  Indiana,  back 
again  to  the  Holston  District  for  four  years,  thence  to 
Green  River  District  in  Kentucky,  and  finally  to  French 
Broad  District,  among  the  Alleghanies  of  North  Caro- 
lina. In  1822  he  located,  near  Madisonville,  Tenn., 
wdiere  he  died  in  1838.  Through  this  vast  rancre  of  his 
ministerial  travels  he  wTas  one  of  the  most  energetic, 
most  popular,  and  most  useful  preachers  of  the  times. 
His  pulpit  talents  were  not  above  mediocrity,  his  man- 
ners utterly  unpolished  ;  but  he  combined  with  profound 
piety  and  much  tender  sensibility  the  shrewdest  sense, 
an  astonishing  aptness  of  speech,  and  an  exhaustless 
humor.  The  latter,  however,  was  usually  so  well  di- 
rected that  it  seemed  wisdom  itself,  arrayed  in  smiles. 
Few,  if  any,  of  his  contemporaries  drew  larger  audiences, 
for  Axley  was  irresistible  to  the  western  people.  A 
bishop  of  the  Church  has  given  us  our  fullest  record  of 
him.12  "  His  person  was  imposing.  He  wras  perhaps 
five  feet  eight  inches  high,  not  corpulent,  but  very 
broad  and  compactly  built,  formed  for  strength;  his 
step  was  firm,  his  face  was  square,  complexion  dark, 
eyebrows  heavy,  appearance  rugged,  and  he  dressed  in 
the  costume  of  our  lathers,  with  straight-breasted  coat, 
and  broad-brimmed  hat  projecting  ovi  r  a  sedate  counte- 
nance. Hi-  wide-spread  fame  as  a  natural  genius  with- 
out any  early  education,  and  especially  tin-  numerous 
» Bishop  Morris,  in  Fihley'e  Sketches,  p.  281. 


368  HISTORY    OF    THE 

incidents  I  had  heard  of  him  as  a  western  pioneer,  had 
excited  in  me  a  greater  desire  for  his  personal  acquaint- 
ance than  that  of  any  other  living  man  I  had  ever  seen, 
except  Jacob  Gruber.     As  I  neared  him  I  held  out  my 
right  hand  and  received  his,  when  the  following  saluta- 
tions were  exchanged :  '  How  are  you,  Brother  Axley  ? ' 
'Who  are  you?'      'My  name  is  Thomas  A.  Morris.' 
Then,   surveying   me   from   head   to   foot,   he   replied, 
'Upon  my  word,  I  think  they  were  hard  pushed  for 
bishop-timber  when  they  got  hold  of  you.'     'That  is 
just  what  I  thought  myself,  Brother  Axley.'     'Why, 
you  look  too  young  for  a  bishop.'     'As  to  that,  I  am 
old  enough  to  know  more  and  do  better.'      Turning 
back  with  me,  we  walked  to  our  lodging,  being  both 
quartered  at  the  same  place.     Every  hour  that  I  could 
redeem  from  Conference  and  council  business  was  en- 
livened by  his  quaint  but  thrilling  narratives  of  his 
early  travels,  labors,  and  difficulties.     He  spiced  the 
whole  with  such  apt  remarks  and  consummate  good- 
humor  that  the  attention  of  the  company  never  faltered. 
Never  was  I  better  entertained  or  more  instructed  with 
the  conversation  of  a  fellow-sojourner  in  one  week  than 
with  his.     There  were  points  of  singular  contrast  in  his 
character.    His  exterior  was  rough  as  a  block  of  granite 
fresh  from  the  quarry,  and  his  manner  of  reproving  dis- 
orderly persons  at  popular  meetings  over  which  he  pre- 
sided was  said  to  indicate  severity ;  yet  his  conscience 
was  so  tender,  and  his  moral  sensibility  so  acute,  that  jl 
mere  suggestion  from  a  friend  that  he  had  erred  in  any 
given  case  would  draw  from  him  prompt  acknowledg- 
ment, with  a  shower  of  tears.     In  social  intercourse  he 
was  both  kind  and  attractive.    His  conversational  talent 
was  of  a  superior  order.     Without  classical  learning,  or 
much  pretension  to  book  knowledge,  he  was  such  a 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         869 

master  in  practical,  every-day  affairs,  that  he  could  not 
only  delight,  but  instruct  sages  and  divines.  He  was 
proverbial  for  his  opposition  to  slavery  and  whisky. 
After  he  located  he  supported  his  family  by  the  labor 
of  his  own  hands  as  a  farmer,  and  was  wont  to  testify, 
on  all  proper  occasions,  that  his  logs  were  rolled,  his 
house  raised,  and  his  grain  cut  without  whisky  ;  and 
though  he  had  plentiful  crops  of  corn,  not  the  first  track 
of  a  negro's  foot  was  ever  seen  in  one  of  his  fields." 

Sufficient  evidence  has  heretofore  been  given  to 
show  that  he  shared  fully  the  opinions  of  the  western 
ministry  on  the  subjects  of  temperance  and  slavery. 
They  saw  that  whisky  was  becoming  the  bane  of  their 
rude  but  grand  country,  and  Axley  preached  famous 
sermons  against  the  distillation  of  the  "fire-waters." 
They  saw  slavery  also  gradually  invading  the  fair 
domain,  and  threatening  to  dishonor  labor  and  demor- 
alize their  social  life.  The  strongest  men  among  them 
arrayed  themselves  against  it.  Xot  a  few  intelligent 
laymen  emigrated,  like  M'Coriniek,  beyond  the  Ohio, 
that  they  might  raise  their  families  away  from  its  men- 
acing evils.  "I  do  not  recollect,"  says  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  "  a  single  Methodist  preacher  of  that  day  who 
justified  slavery."  .Many  who  could  not  well  remove 
opposed  the  encroaching  barbarism  sturdily.  Quarterly 
Conferences  acted  uncompromisingly  against  it,  and  as 
early  as  1808,  when  all  western  Methodism  was  still 
comprised  in  the  "Old  Western  Conference,"  that  body 
enacted  stringent  antislavery  laws,  which  were  signed 
on  the  journals  by  Bishops  Asbury  and  M'Kendree. 
The  latter  was  at  that  time  a  decided  abolitionist,  as 
contemporary  documents  Bhow. 

Axley  joined  the  Conference  at  the  same  time  with 
Parker  and  Cartwright.     To  the  latter  he  was  of  course 


370  HISTORY    OF    THE 

a  congenial  mind.  "  We  were  always,"  says  Cart- 
wright,  "bosom  friends  till  he  closed  his  earthly  pil- 
grimage." Cartwright  records  "  an  illustration  of  Ax- 
ley's  extraordinary  faith,"  which  is  an  equal  illustration 
of  the  character  of  the  times  and  the  country.  They 
wore  at  a  camp-meeting  in  Tennessee,  Axley  endeavor- 
ing to  sustain  order  among  a  crew  of  "  rowdies  "  while 
Cartwright  was  preaching.  "  They  actually  threatened 
to  lay  the  cowhide  over  him,"  says  the  latter.  "  He 
replied  with  great  calmness  and  firmness  that  that  was 
not  the  place  for  an  encounter,  and  that,  if  they  were 
really  bent  on  fighting,  they  must  retire  outside  the  en- 
campment. Immediately  he  found  himself  in  the  midst 
of  a  crowd  there.  Axley  remarked  that  he  could  not 
possibly  go  into  the  fight  until  he  had  prayed,  and  in- 
stantly knelt  down.  He  poured  forth  his  heart  in  a 
strain  of  uncommon  fervor ;  the  base  fellows  themselves 
were  actually  disarmed,  and  such  an  impression  of  rev- 
erence and  solemnity  came  over  them  that  they  at  once 
abandoned  their  impious  design,  and  behaved  them- 
selves with  perfect  decorum.  On  the  Monday  following 
he  preached  a  sermon,  under  which  several  of  them  were 
melted  into  tears.  When  the  awakened  came  forward 
for  the  prayers  of  the  Church  there  were  found  among 
them  a  number  of  these  persons,  and,  before  the  meeting 
closed,  some  of  them  professed  to  have  become  new 
creatures  in  Christ  Jesus." 

His  opposition  to  spirituous  liquors  led  him  to  intro- 
duce into  the  General  Conference  of  1812  a  resolution 
against  their  use  by  Church  members.  It  failed ;  but  he 
repeated  the  effort  in  1816.  Many  in  the  Conference 
opposed  him,  making  merry  with  his  quaint  speeches, 
"  He  turned  his  face  to  the  wall  and  wept,"  says  Laban 
Clark,  who  joined  him  in  the  measure.     He  persisted 

a 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        371 

Aowever,  and  at  last  triumphed.  "I  remember,"  Bays 
Clark,  ''particularly  on  the  first  occasion  of  my  meeting 
him,  Axley  made  rather  a  strange  and  grotesque  appear- 
since.  He  wore  a  short  cloak,  and  a  round  Quaker  hat, 
and,  as  he  rode  on  horseback,  made  a  figure  which  could 
hardly  fail  to  arrest  the  attention  of  all  the  passers  by. 
To  the  boys  who  ran  after  him  in  the  street  he  turned 
round  and  said,  '  Go  along,  aint  you  ashamed  of  your- 
>elves?'  which  only  made  them  'hurrah'  the  more  bois- 
terously, lie  wa>  evidently  a  man  of  great  native 
power,  was  social  and  pleasant,  and  always  left  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  living  under  the  influence  of  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come." 

Peter  Cartwright  was  born  in  Amherst  County,  Va., 
in  1785,  the  son  of  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  who 
hated  negro  as  well  as  white  slavery.13  He  early  settled 
in  Kentucky,  where  his  son  was  trained  amid  the  wild- 
est scenes  of  frontier  life,  but  taught  to  fear  God  by  his 
Methodist  mother.  He  grew  up  therefore  thoroughly 
-  med  with  western  hardihood,  but  saved  from  many 
of  th?  vices  prevalent  around  him.  In  his  ninth  year 
he  heard  the  itinerant,  Jacob  Lurton,  preach  in  his 
father's  cabin,  and  describes  him  as  "a  real  son  of  thun- 
der." "My  mother,'*  he  add-,  "shouted  aloud  for 
joy."  5;  A  small  class  was  formed  at  about  four  miles 
distance,  to  which  his  good  mother  walked  every  week. 
At  last  they  built  a  little  church,  and  called  it  "Eben- 
izer."  Methodism  <»i!  the  old  Cumberland  Circuit  had 
thrown  its  spiritual  >helter  over  the  wandering  family, 
and  chose  their  adventurous  boy,  their  only  son,  for  one 
of  it-  chief  western  pioneers.  In  hi-  sixteenth  year,  after 
dancing  at  a  wedding,  he  went  home  with  an  awakened 

is  Letu-r  of  Peter  Cartwrlgbt  to  the-  author.    Dec.  28, 1865. 
14  Cartwri/ht'-  Autobiography,  p    :•  rk,  185& 


372  HISTORY    OF    THE 

conscience.  Unable  to  sleep,  he  spent  much  of  the  night 
on  his  knees  with  his  praying  mother,  and,  some  time 
afterward,  was  converted  at  a  camp-meeting.  He  joined 
the  Church,  at  "Ebenezer,"  in  1801,  when  there  were 
less  than  twenty-five  hundred  Methodists  and  about 
fifteen  traveling  preachers  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 
Striking  anomaly  of  human  life,  possible  perhaps  no- 
where else  than  in  this  new  world,  that  this  young 
hunter  of  the  frontier  should  still,  while  we  trace  these 
lines,  be  abroad  an  active  apostle  of  his  Church,  amid 
mighty  states  then  unborn,  but  now  equal  to  more  than 
half  of  Europe,  an  empire  of  liberty  and  Christianity 
stretching  from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Pacific. 

In  1802  he  was  licensed  to  exhort  by  Jesse  Walker,  a 
congenial  spirit.  He  applied  himself  to  study,  con- 
ducted public  meetings,  formed  classes,  and  received 
"  the  celebrated  James  Axley  into  the  Church."  The 
young  exhorter  actually  thus  formed  the  Lexington 
Circuit  in  1803,  and  the  next  year  Walker  was  its 
preacher.  At  last,  in  his  nineteenth  year,  urged  by  his 
pious  mother,  but  opposed  by  his  father,  he  went  forth 
as  a  circuit  preacher  "  under  the  presiding  elder."  At 
the  Conference  of  1804,  held  at  Mount  Gerizim,  Ky.,  he 
was  received  on  probation.  Of  all  the  itinerants  of  that 
session  he  is  the  only  survivor.  The  bare  enumeration 
of  his  subsequent  "  appointments"  would  cover  pages. 
In  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  in  almost  every  portion  of  the 
Northwestern  Territory,  he  fought  courageously  the 
battles  of  his  Church ;  not  always  with  the  voice,  but 
sometimes,  like  Finley  and  others,  he  had  to  use  his 
stout  fist  against  the  onset  of  semi-barbarous  mobs.  A 
frontier  man,  he  knew  the  perils  and  necessities  of  front- 
ier life ;  and  when  his  appeals  to  the  conscience  of  his 
sometimes  half  savage  hearers  could  not  prevail,  and 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         373 

especially  when  the  decorum  of  public  worship,  or  the 
safety  of  his  congregations  has  been  periled,  he  could 
show  himself  physically  formidable,  and  make  the  mob 
recoil.  We  need  to  read  the  record  of  such  a  life  as  his 
wit  li  somewhat  of  the  moral  license  of  the  early  frontier 
spirit.  "  My  voice,"  he  says,  "  at  that  day  was  strong 
and  clear,  and  I  could  sing,  exhort,  pray,  and  preach 
sumost  all  the  time,  day  and  night."  Some  of  his  meet- 
ings lasted  all  night.  His  circuits  were  like  lines  of 
battle,  continually  in  excitement,  if  not  commotion. 
Some  of  his  quarterly  meetings  were  not  only  scenes  of 
spiritual  conflict  and  victory,  but  of  "  hand-to  hand 
fights"  with  the  rabble.  One  of  them,  on  Scioto  Cir- 
cuit, in  1805,  was  held  in  the  woods.  The  mob,  led  on 
by  two  champions,  who  bore  u loaded  whips,"  invaded 
it.  Cartwright  called  from  the  stand  upon  two  magis- 
trates in  the  assembly  to  arrest  the  leaders,  but  they 
replied  that  it  was  impossible.  He  came  forward  him- 
self, offering  to  do  it  for  them,  but  the  assailants  struck 
at  him.  The  greatest  tumult  ensued;  the  congregation 
was  in  confusion ;  the  whole  mob  pressed  upon  him  and 
his  friends.  He  seized  one  after  another  of  the  principal 
rioters,  and  threw  them  to  the  earth,  including  a  drunken 
magistrate  who  had  taken  sides  with  them.  "  Just  at 
this  moment,"  he  writes,  <;the  ringleader  of  the  mob 
and  I  met.  lie  made  three  passes  at  me,  intending  to 
knock  me  down.  The  last  time  he  struck  at  me,  by  the 
force  of  his  own  effort  he  threw  the  side  of  his  face 
toward  me.  It  seemed  at  that  moment  I  had  not  power 
t"  resist  temptation,  and  I  struck  a  sudden  blow  in  the 
burr  of  the  ear,  and  felled  him  t<>  the  earth.  The  friends 
of  order  now  rushed  by  hundreds  on  the  mob,  knocking 
them  down  in  every  direction.  In  a  few  annates  the 
place  became  too  strait  for  the  mob,  ami  they  wheeled, 


374  HISTORY    OF    1HE 

and  fled  in  every  direction ;  but  we  secured  about  thirty 
prisoners,  marched  them  off'  to  a  vacant  tent,  and  put 
them  under  guard  till  Monday  morning,  when  they 
were  tried,  and  every  man  was  fined  to  the  utmost 
limits  of  the  law.  They  fined  my  old  drunken  magis- 
trate twenty  dollars,  and  returned  him  to  court,  and  ue 
was  cashiered  of  his  office.  On  Sunday,  when  we  had 
vanquished  the  mob,  the  whole  encampment  was  filled 
with  mourning ;  and,  although  there  was  no  attempt  to 
resume  preaching  till  evening,  yet,  such  was  our  con. 
fused  state,  there  was  not  then  a  single  preacher  on 
the  ground  willing  to  preach,  from  the  presiding  elder, 
John  Sale,  down.  Seeing  we  had  fallen  on  evil  times, 
my  spirit  was  stirred  within  me.  I  said  to  the  elder,  '  I 
feel  a  clear  conscience,  for  under  the  necessity  of  the  cir- 
cumstances we  have  done  right,  and  now  I  ask  you  to  let 
me  preach.'  '  Do,'  said  the  elder,  '  for  there  is  no  other 
man  on  the  ground  can  do  it.'  The  encampment  was 
lighted  up,  the  trumpet  blown,  I  rose  in  the  stand,  and 
required  every  soul  to  leave  the  tents,  and  come  into 
the  congregation.  There  was  a  general  rush  to  the 
stand.  I  requested  the  brethren,  if  ever  they  prayed  in 
all  their  lives,  to  pray  now.  My  voice  was  strong  and 
clear,  and  my  preaching  was  more  of  an  exhortation 
and  encouragement  than  anything  else.  My  text  was, 
4  The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail.'  In  about  thirty 
minutes  the  power  of  God  fell  on  the  congregation  in 
such  a  manner  as  is  seldom  seen.  The  people  fell  in 
every  direction,  right  and  left,  front  and  rear.  It  was 
supposed  that  not  less  than  three  hundred  fell  like  dead 
men  in  battle,  and  there  was  no  need  of  calling  mourn- 
ers, for  they  were  strewed  all  over  the  camp-ground. 
Our  meeting  lasted  all  night,  and  Monday  and  Monday 
night ;  and  when  we  closed  on  Tuesday,  there  were  two 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         37o 

Hundred  who  had  professed  religion,  and  about  that 
Dumber  joined  the  Church.  Brother  Axley  and  myself 
pulled  together  like  true  yoke-fellows.  We  were  both 
raised  ii  the  backwoods,  and  well  understood  frontier 
life." 

Similar  scenes  were  hardly  rare  on  the  western  front- 
ier. Irreconcileable  as  they  may  be  to  our  sense  of 
religious  decorum,  they  are  essential  illustrations  of  the 
times.  History  cannot  evade  them,  even  if  we  should 
imt  feel  a  lurking  sympathy  with  the  rude  courage 
which  they  too  often  provoked  beyond  all  self-control. 

For  nearly  seventy  years  Peter  Cartwright  has  been 
a  Methodist,  for  nearly  sixty-five  an  itinerant  preacher, 
for  about  fifty  years  a  presiding  elder;  twelve  times  he 
ha-  shared  in  the  General  Conferences  of  his  Church.  In 
his  long  minir-terial  life  he  has  not  lost  six  months  from 
hi-  regular  work  for  any  cause  whatever.  "For  twenty 
year-  of  my  mini-try,"'  he  writes,  "I  often  preached 
twice  a  day,  and  sometimes  three  times.  We  seldom 
ever  had  in  those  days  more  than  one  rest-day  in  a 
week,  so  that  I  feel  very  safe  in  saying  that  I  preached 
four  hundred  times  a  year.  I  was  converted  on  a  camp 
ground,  and  for  many  years  of  my  early  ministry,  after 
1  wa-  appointed  presiding  elder,  lived  in  the  tented 
grove  from  two  to  three  months  in  the  year.  I  have 
lived  to  see  this  vast  western  wilderness  rise  and  im- 
prove, and  become  wealthy  without  a  parallel  in  the 
history  of  the  world  ;  I  have  outlived  every  member  of 
my  father's  family;  I  have  no  father,  no  mother,  no 
brother, no  Bister  Living;  1  have  outlived  every  member 
of  the  class  I  joined  in  1800;  I  have  outlived  every 
member  of  the  Western  Conference  in  1804;  I  have 
outlived  nearly  every  member  of  the  first  General  Con- 
ference that  I  was  elected  t".  in  Baltimore,  in  1816;  I 


376  HISTORY    01     THE 

have  outlived  all  my  early  bishops ;  I  have  outlived 
every  presiding  elder  that  I  ever  had  when  on  circuits ; 
and  I  have  outlived  hundreds  and  thousands  of  my  con- 
temporary ministers  and  members,  as  well  as  juniors, 
and  still  linger  on  the  mortal  shores.  Though  all  these 
have  died  they  shall  live  again,  and,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  I  shall  live  with  them  in  heaven  forever.  Why  I 
live  God  only  knows.  I  certainly  have  toiled  and  suf- 
fered enough  to  kill  a  thousand  men,  but  I  do  not  com- 
plain. Thank  God  for  health,  strength,  and  grace,  that 
have  borne  me  up,  and  borne  me  on  ;  thank  God  that 
during  my  long  and  exposed  life  as  a  Methodist  preacher, 
I  have  never  been  overtaken  with  any  scandalous  sin, 
though  my  shortcomings  and  imperfections  have  been 
without  number." 

He  has  received  into  the  Church  some  twelve  thou 
sand  members,  and  led  into  the  itinerancy  scores,  if  not 
hundreds,  of  preachers.  Rough  and  hardy  as  the  oak; 
overflowing  with  geniality  and  humor;  a  tireless  worker 
and  traveler ;  a  sagacious  counselor,  giving  often  in  the 
strangest  disguises  of  wit  and  humor  the  shrewdest 
suggestions  of  wisdom ;  an  unfailing  friend,  an  incom- 
parable companion,  a  faithful  patriot,  and  an  earnest 
Methodist,  Peter  Cartwright  has  been,  for  nearly  three 
generations,  one  of  the  most  noted,  most  interesting, 
most  inexplicable  men  of  the  West  and  of  Methodism. 

David  Young's  labors,  especially  in  Ohio,  were  long 
and  successful.  He  was  born  in  Bedford  County,  Va., 
was  well  trained  at  home,  where  he  had  the  then  rare 
advantage  of  a  good  library,  and  by  becoming  a  stu- 
dious youth,  prepared  an  intelligent  and  effective  man- 
hood. From  his  seventh  year  he  was  seldom  without 
religious  reflection.  In  1803  he  emigrated  to  Ten- 
nessee, where  he  taught  a  grammar  school ;  and  in  the 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  377 

same  year  was   converted,  and   became   a  Methodist. 
The  next  year  he  was  "  exhorting,"  and  in  1S05  joined 
the  Conference.     His  appointments  were  for  some  time 
in  Tennessee;  but  in  1811  he  was  sent  to  Ohio,  where 
he  labored,  with  commanding  influence,  down  to  1849, 
when  he  was  placed  on  the  "  superannuated  list."     He 
suffered  from  disease  most  of  his  life,  the  effect  of  his 
early  itinerant  exposures.    His  self-education,  improving 
I  natural  powers,  secured  him  "the  first  rank  among 
his  brother  ministers."  15     He  was  always  master  of  his 
Mihjeet.     "  His  logical  method,  associated  with  fervency 
of  spirit,  enchained  his  auditory.     Sometimes  his  pathos 
was  overwhelming,  for  he  was  often  a  weeping  prophet. 
Fond  of  reading,  he  had  in  store  a  large  amount  of  gen- 
eral literature,  which  gave  great  interest  to  his  preach- 
ing.    His  voice  was  pleasant,  though  sometimes  shrill 
and    penetrating ;    his    gestieulation    graceful,    and   his 
whole  manner  peculiarly  solemn  and  impressive."     He 
led  into  the  communion  and  ministry  of  the  Church  its 
present  senior  bishop,  who  describes  him  as  "  tall  and 
slender,  but  straight  and  symmetrical.     His  step  was 
elastic.     He  wore  the  straight-breasted  coat,  and  the 
broad-brimmed  hat  usual  among  early  Methodist  preach- 
Ilis  yellow  hair,  all  combed  back,  hung  in  great 
profusion  about  his  neck  and  shoulders,  giving  him  an 
imposing  appearance.     His  blue  eyes  were  prominent, 
and  exceedingly  penetrating.     I  heard  a  Virginia  law- 
yer say  that  he  could  withstand  the  direct  contact  of 
any  preacher's   eye  in  the  pulpit  he  ever  saw,  except 
David  Young's;    but  his  always  made  him  <piail.     Iu 
manners  he  was  a  finished  gentleman  of  the  Virgiuia 
school.      He  abounded  in  incident,  and  had  a  rare  talent 
at  narration,  both  in  and  out  of  the  pulpit     Yet,  as  a 
"Rev  Dr.  Trimble,  in  Sprague,  \>.  48L 


378  HISTORY    OF    THE 

minister,  he  was  grave  and  dignified.  No  man  con* 
ducted  a  public  religious  service  more  solemnly  or  im- 
pressively than  he  did,  especially  in  reading  the  Holy 
Scriptures  or  in  prayer.  His  deep  religious  emotion 
was  always  apparent  in  his  prayers  and  his  sermons 
On  special  occasions,  while  applying  the  momentous 
truths  of  the  gospel,  ha  stood  on  his  knees  in  the  pulpit, 
and,  with  many  tears,  entreated  sinners,  as  in  Christ's 
stead,  to  be  reconciled  to  God.  Among  the  most  cele- 
brated Methodist  preachers  of  the  great  West  fifty 
years  ago  were  William  Beauchamp,  Samuel  Parker, 
and  David  Young,  each  of  whom  excelled  in  his  own 
way.  Beauchamp  was  the  most  instructive,  Parker  the 
most  practical  and  persuasive,  and  Young  the  most 
overpowering.  Under  the  preaching  of  Beauchamp 
light  seemed  to  break  on  the  most  bewildered  under- 
standing ;  under  that  of  Parker,  multitudes  of  people 
melted  like  snow  before  an  April  sun ;  while,  under  the 
ministry  of  Young,  I  knew  whole  assemblies  electrified, 
as  suddenly  and  as  sensibly  as  if  coming  in  contact  with 
a  galvanic  battery.  I  have  myself,  under  some  of  his 
powerful  appeals,  felt  the  cold  tremors  passing  over  me, 
and  the  hair  on  my  head  apparently  standing  on  end. 
On  camp-meeting  occasions,  where  the  surroundings 
were  unusually  exciting,  it  has  sometimes  happened 
that  vast  numbers  of  persons  have  simultaneously 
sprung  from  their  seats,  and  rushed  up  as  near  to  the 
pulpit  as  they  could,  apparently  unconscious  of  having 
changed  positions."  He  died  at  Zanesville  in  185  S 
His  descent  to  the  grave  was  like  a  serene  going  down 
of  the  sun.  "I  am  calmly,"  he  said,  "though  through 
great  physical  suffering,  nearing  my  better  home."  16 
John  Collins  has  already  appeared  in  our  pages  a& 
16  Obituary,  by  Rev.  J.  W.  White,  in  Western  Christian  Advocate. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOTAL    CHURCH.         379 

founding  the  Church  in  Cincinnati.  He  was  born  in 
New  Jersey  iu  1769,  and  was  of  Quaker  parentage. 
When  very  young  his  attention  Mas  drawn  to  religious 
subjects  by  hearing  a  hymn  sung  as  he  passed  the 
house  of  a  neighbor.  For  several  years  he  struggled 
against  his  convictions,  living  a  moral  life,  but  attaining 
no  rest  for  his  soul.  He  went  to  Charleston,  S.  C,  in 
order  to  escape  his  local  associations,  and,  if  possible, 
become  a  more  decided  Christian  away  from  the  obser- 
vations of  his  acquaintances,  but  failed,  and,  returning 
home,  was  converted  in  1794.  He  soon  began  to  preach, 
but  with  much  self-distrust,  and  doubt  of  his  divine  call 
to  the  ministry.  Learner  Blackman,  his  brother-in-law, 
was  saved  by  his  first  sermon,  and  Collins  now  hesitated 
no  more,  especially  as  he  further  ascertained  that  ten  or 
twelve  of  his  kindred  were  awakened  by  the  same  dis- 
course.'7 His  word,  even  his  casual  allusions  to  religion, 
;ed  to  have  remarkable  effect.  lie  had  been  ap- 
pointed major  of  militia,  but  now  resigned  the  office, 
and  >old  his  uniform  to  his  successor,  saying  to  him, 
"My  friend,  when  you  put  these  on,  think  of  the  reason 
why  I  laid  them  otf."  The  brief  sentence  was  "  a  nail 
fastened  in  a  sure  place."  It  so  impressed  the  young 
officer  that  he  also  resigned  the  post,  and  became  a 
Methodist." 

Blackman  went  to  the  West,  where,  as  has  oeen 
noticed,  he  became  a  champion  of  the  itinerancy  from 
Ohio  to  Louisiana.  Collins  followed  him  m  1803,  and 
located  his  family  in  Clermont  County,  about  twenty- 
five  miles  west  of  Cincinnati.  He  thus  became  a  co- 
laborer  with  M'Cormick,  Gatch,  Tiffin,  and   Scott   in 

n  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Rev.  John  Collin?,  by  Judge  M'Leaa,  p.  11. 
Cincinnati,  1853. 
••  B       •'.  9    Wright,  in  V.  .-tiuu  Adv.,  October,  1817. 

D — 'o  * 


380  HISTORY    OF    THE 

founding  the  denomination  in  the  Northwestern  Ter- 
ritory. 

In  1807  he  joined  the  itinerancy.  His  appointments, 
with  two  intervals  of  "  location,"  were  all  in  Ohio  for 
thirty  years.  In  1837  his  infirmities  required  him  to 
retreat  into  a  "  superannuated  relation."  He  lived  yet 
about  seven  years  a  serene  Christian  life,  venerated  by 
the  Church,  beloved  for  his  memorable  services,  his 
gentle  manners,  his  catholicity,  his  pathetic  eloquence, 
and  his  cheerful  piety.  He  died  a  blessed  death,  in 
1845.  "Happy!  happy!  happy!"  were  his  last 
words. 

The  fruits  of  his  ministry  abounded  in  all  parts  of 
Ohio,  for  his  superior  character  and  talents  gave  him 
extraordinary  influence  among  all  classes  of  the  popula- 
tion. Among  other  eminent  citizens  he  led  into  the 
Church  John  M'Lean,  afterward  judge  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  nation,  and  the  biographer  of  the 
itinerant.  Born  in  New  Jersey  in  1785,  M'Lean  emi- 
grated successively  to  Western  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and 
Ohio.  When  eighteen  years  old  he  began  his  legal 
education,  in  Cincinnati,  under  Arthur  St.  Clair.  He 
gave  himself  meanwhile  to  general  studies  in  almost 
every  department  of  science  and  literature.  He  became 
skeptical  in  religion,  but,  after  his  admission  to  the  bar 
at  Lebanon,  Ohio,  in  1807,  he  was  rescued  by  Collins. 
One  of  the  judge's  biographers  says,  "Collins  had  an 
appointment  to  preach  in  a  private  house  at  Lebanon. 
The  people  crowded  the  rooms,  and  many  had  to  stand 
about  the  doors.  Among  these  was  M'Lean,  who  stood 
where  he  could  hear  distinctly,  though,  as  he  thought, 
unobserved  by  the  speaker.  During  the  discourse, 
however,  he  fell  under  the  notice  of  Collins's  keen 
eye,  and  his  prepossessing  appearance  attracted  at  the 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  381 

first  glance  the  notice  of  the  preacher.  He  paused  a 
moment,  and  mentally  offered  up  a  short  prayer  for  the 
conversion  o\'  the  young  man.  Resuming  his  discourse, 
tlie  tir^t  word  he  uttered  was  'eternity.'  That  word 
was  spoken  with  a  voice  so  solemn  and  impressive  that 
its  full  import  was  felt  by  M'Lean.  All  things  besides 
appeared  to  be  nothing  in  comparison  to  it.  He  soon 
sought  an  acquaintance  with  Collins,  and,  a  short  time 
after  this,  accompanied  him  to  one  of  his  appointments 
in  the  country,  and,  at  the  close  of  the  sermon,  he  re- 
mained in  class  to  inquire  what  he  must  do  to  be 
saved.  On  their  return  to  Lebanon  Collins  told  his 
young  friend  that  he  had  a  request  to  make  of  him 
which  was  reasonable,  and  he  hoped  would  not  be 
rejected.  The  request  was,  that  he  would  read  the 
New  Testament  at  least  fifteen  minutes  every  day  till 
his  next  visit.  The  promise  was  made,  and  strictly  per- 
formed. After  this  a  covenant  was  .entered  into  by  the 
parties  to  meet  each  other  at  the  throne  of  grace  at  the 
m  tting  of  the  sun.  The  agreed  suppliants  had  not  con- 
tinued their  daily,  united,  and  earnest  prayers  long 
•  M'Lean  was  justified  by  faith,  and  realized  the 
great  blessing  of  'the  washing  of  regeneration  and  re- 
in-wing  of  the  Holy  (diost.'"19 

The  United  States  never  had  a  more  upright  or  more 
honorable  citizen,  nor  American  .Methodism  a  more 
faithful  member  than  Judge  M'Lean.  lie  was  com- 
manding in  person,  tall,  and  symmetrical  in  stature, 
with  a  Platonic  brow,  thoughtful,  tranquil  features,  and 
the  most  modest  but  cordial  manners.  lb-  was  an  able 
statesman,  almost  infallible  in  hi-  cautious  judgment,  a 
thoroughly  devoted  Christian,  persevering  and  punctual 
in  the  minutest  duties  of  lii-  ( 'hurch,  and  catholic  in  hie 

••  Blsno  "*  Clark,  in  Li  Cincinnati,  1859, 


382  HISTORY    OF    THE 

regard  for  good  men  of  whatever  sect.  Lawyer,  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  supreme  judge  of  Ohio,  member  of  the 
cabinets  of  Monroe  and  Adams,  and  supreme  justice  of 
the  Republic,  he  passed  through  a  long  life  unblemished, 
and  above  all  his  titles,  gloried  in  that  of  a  Christian. 

M'Lean  says  of  Collins  that  as  both  a  local  and  an  itin 
erant  minister  it  is  supposed  that  the  Methodist  Church 
in  the  West  has  not  had  a  more  successful  preacher. 
He  was  a  marked  man  in  his  person.  He  always  wore 
the  primitive  Quaker  dress.  His  forehead  was  high,  his 
eyes  small,  but  very  expressive,  and  over  all  his  features 
was  spread  an  air  of  refinement,  a  sort  of  intellectual 
and  benevolent  glow,  that  immediately  won  the  interest 
of  the  spectator.  And  his  spirit  and  manners  corre- 
sponded with  these  indications.  The  unction  of  divine 
grace  abode  upon  his  soul.  He  was  always  interesting 
in  the  pulpit,  and  not  unfrequently  extremely  affecting. 
A  very  fountain  of  pathos  welled  up  in  his  devout  heart, 
and  seldom  did  he  preach  without  weeping  himself,  and 
constraining  his  audience  to  weep.  One  who  heard  him 
several  days  in  succession,  at  a  quarterly  meeting,  said, 
"  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  '  British  Spy '  only 
dreamed  of  a  pulpit  orator,  that  it  was  left  for  me  to 
behold  one." 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        o83 


CHAPTER  X. 

METHODISM   IX   THE   WEST,    CONTINUED  :    1804-1820. 

John  Strange  —  His  great  Eloquence  — Russell  Bigelow's  Character 
and  Eloquence— Bishop  Thomson's  Account  of  one  of  his  Forest 
Sermons  —  Sketch  of  Henry  B.  Bascom  —  Of  Thomas  A  Morris  — 
Of  John  P.  Durbin  —  Advance  of  Methodism   in  the  Southwest  — 

Elisha  W.  Bowman  in  Louisiana— His  Explorations  and  Hardships 
—  Scene  between  Asbury  and  Jacob  Young  at  Governor  Tiffin's 
Home — Young  in  the  Southwest  —  Lorenzo  Dow  there — Axley's 
Sufferings  and  Achievements  —  Sketch  of  William  Winans  —  Other 
Southwestern  Itinerants. 

John*  Strange,  a  Virginian,  born  in  1789,  was  one  of 
the  most  successful  evangelists  of  Methodism  in  Ohio, 
whither  he  went  in  his  twentieth  year.  lie  commenced 
preaching  in  1811  ;  in  many  parts  of  the  north- 
western territory  he  labored  powerfully,  though  op- 
pressed with  chronic  disease,  down  to  1832,  when 
he  u  died  in  great  peace,'"  al  Indianapolis,  while  at 
the  head  of  the  Indianapolis  District.  "He  was," 
-  a  fellow-laborer,  ;i  one  of  the  brightest  lights  of 
the  American  pulpit,  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  present  century.  lie  was  formed 
by  nature  t«.  be  eloquent.  He  was  tall  and  slender,  and 
stood  remark-ably  civet.  His  bearing  was  thai  of  one 
born  to  command;  and  yet  combined  with  this  there 
WAS  a  gentleness  and  Boftness  of  manner  that  never 
failed  to  win  the  heart-  of  those  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact      His    hair    v.  -Mark,  and    hi-  eye  s   blue 

and  generally  mild:  but,  when  he  was  animated,  they 
became    remarkably    brilliant    and    penetrating.     1 1  is 


584  HISTORY    OF    THE 

voice  was  unsurpassed,  as  far  as  my  knowledge  extends, 
for  its  compass,  and  the  sweetness,  richness,  and  variety 
of  its  tones.  He  could  elevate  it,  without  apparent 
effort,  so  as  to  be  heard  distinctly  twenty  or  thirty  rods 
in  the  open  air ;  and  yet  it  would  retain  all  its  melody. 
He  could  sing,  pray,  or  preach  for  any  length  of  time, 
without  becoming  in  the  least  degree  hoarse.  Such  was 
the  power  and  attractiveness  of  both  his  matter  and 
manner,  that,  when  he  would  ascend  the  stand  at  camp- 
meeting,  many  who  were  scattered  through  the  sur- 
rounding woods  would  hasten  with  all  possible  speed  to 
the  camp  ground,  that  they  might  lose  nothing  that  he 
should  say.  There  were  times  when  his  audience  were 
held  spell  bound  by  his  eloquence,  and  sometimes  they 
were  even  raised  en  masse  from  their  seats.  Few  men 
were  ever  more  devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  Church, 
or  more  habitually  under  the  influence  of  an  all-pervad- 
ing sense  of  duty,  than  John  Strange.  When,  in  1814, 
he  traveled  White  Water  circuit,  then  a  sparsely  settled 
frontier,  he  would  go  from  one  block-house  to  another 
in  the  exercise  of  his  ministry,  while  he  was  actually 
obliged  to  carry  his  gun  upon  his  shoulder,  to  defend 
himself  from  the  Indians.  Such  self-sacrificing  efforts 
greatly  endeared  him  to  the  people,  and  his  monthly 
visits  to  the  block-houses  and  forts  were  hailed  with  de- 
light. Language  cannot  describe  the  pathetic  and 
impressive  manner  in  which,  on  such  occasions,  he 
would  sing  the  hymn  beginning,  '  And  are  we  yet 
alive  ! '  The  hymn  itself  was  most  touching ;  and,  taker. 
in  connec  lion  with  his  manner  of  singing  it,  and  the 
circumstances  which  it  so  aptly  described,  it  was  quite 
irresistible."  } 

A  bishop  of  the  Church  describes  his  appearance  in 
1  Rev.  F.  C.  Holliday,  in  Sprague,  p.  505. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH".         6So 

the  pulpit  as  "peculiar,  almost  angelic."  He  '  had  a 
certain  ethereal  expression  of  countenance.  When  he 
opened  his  lips  you  heard  a  voice,  clear  and  shrill,  of 
immense  compass  and  perfect  melody,  that  well-nigh 
entranced  you.  Presently  the  spirit  within  would  begin 
to  kindle,  and  then  his  countenance  would  take  on  a 
seraphi  plow  as  if  it  were  a  fountain  of  sunbeams. 
HL>  intonations,  his  emphasis,  his  pauses,  everything 
pertaining  to  his  elocution,  seemed  exactly  adapted  to 
convey  his  thoughts  in  the  most  fitting,  graceful,  and 
effective  manner.  There  was  no  appearance  of  any 
great  effort  in  his  preaching ;  it  seemed  rather  like  the 
simple  moving  of  a  wonderful  mind,  in  the  bright  and 
Lofty  path  which  the  Creator  had  constituted  as  its 
native  element.  I  should  pronounce  him  unhesitatingly 
a  man  of  the  highest  style  of  genius.  He  had  a  great 
fund  of  ready  wit,  and  always  knew  how  to  say  the 
best  thing,  at  the  best  time,  and  in  the  best  manner.2" 

Traditions  of  his  eloquence  and  usefulness  are  rife 
through  all  Ohio.  He  was  an  accomplished  and  heroic 
soldier  of  the  cross,  and  won  innumerable  trophies. 
Just  before  he  died,  his  last  words  to  a  friend  were, 
'*  Serve  God  and  fight  the  devil." 

Superior  even  to  Strange,  as  a  preacher,  was  Russell 
Bigelow,  a  man  of  inferior  presence,  but  of  astonishing 
eloquence,  of  which  the  elder  Methodists  of  Kentucky, 
Indiana,  and  Ohio  never  tire  of  speaking,  though  they 
can  only  describe  it  as  "indescribable.''  He  was  born 
ii  New  Hampshire,  lived  in  Canada,  where  he  became 
a  Methodist,  and  emigrated  to  Ohio  in  1812.  In  his 
twentieth  year  he  began  to  exhort,  and  in  1814  joined 
the  conference,  and  commenced  his  itinerant  labors  in 
Kentucky.  In  1810  he  was  sent  to  Ohio,  when;  he  con- 
a  Bishop  Ames,  in  Bprague,  p.  511. 


380  HISTORY    OP    THE 

tinued  to  labor  as  circuit  preacher,  Indian  missionary, 
and  presiding  elder,  down  to  1834,  when  he  was  returned 
superannuated,  and  the  next  year  died,  "  shouting  the 
praises  of  his  heavenly  King."  3  President  Thomson, 
(afterward  bishop,)  when  a  young  student,  was  at- 
tracted by  his  fame  to  hear  him  at  a  camp  meeting. 
"  Never,"  he  writes,  "  was  I  so  disappointed  in  a  man's 
personal  appearance.  He  was  below  the  middle  stature, 
and  clad  in  coarse,  ill-made  garments.  His  uncombed 
hair  hung  loosely  over  his  forehead.  His  attitudes  and 
motions  were  exceedingly  ungraceful,  and  every  feature 
of  his  countenance  was  unprepossessing.  The  long  hair 
that  came  down  to  his  cheeks  concealed  a  broad  and 
prominent  forehead;  the  keen  eye  that  peered  from 
beneath  his  heavy  and  overjetting  eyebrows,  beamed 
with  intelligence ;  the  prominent  cheek  bones,  project- 
ing chin,  and  large  nose,  indicated  any  thing  but  intel- 
lectual feebleness  ;  while  the  wide  mouth,  depressed  at 
its  corners,  the  slightly  expanded  nostrils,  and  the  lout 
ensemble  of  his  expression,  indicated  both  sorrow  and 
love,  and  were  in  admirable  keeping  with  the  message, 
'  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.'  His  words  were  pure  and 
well  chosen,  his  accent  never  misplaced,  his  sentences 
grammatical,  artistically  constructed,  and  well  arranged, 
both  for  harmony  and  effect.  Having  stated  and  illus- 
trated his  position  clearly,  he  laid  broad  the  foundation 
of  his  argument,  and  piled  stone  upon  stone,  hewed  and 
polished,  until  he  stood  upon  a  majestic  pyramid,  with 
heaven's  own  light  around  him,  pointing  the  astonished 
multitude  to  a  brighter  home  beyond  the  sun.  His  ar- 
gument being  completed,  his  peroration  commenced. 
The  whole  universe  seemed  now  animated  by  its  Creator 
3  Fiuley's  Sketches,  p.  414. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         3b7 

iO  aid  him  in  persuading  t he  sinner  to  return  to  God, 
and  the  angels  commissioned  to  descend  from  heaven  to 
strengthen  him.  As  he  closed  his  discourse,  every  en- 
ergy of  his  mind  and  body  seemed  stretched  to  the  ut- 
most point  of  tension.  His  soul  appeared  too  great  for 
its  tenement  ;  his  lungs  Labored  ;  his  arms  were  lifted  ; 
the  perspiration,  mingled  with  tears,  flowed  in  a  steady 
stream  from  his  face,  and  everything  about  him  seemed 
to  say,  'O  that  mine  head  were  waters  ! '  The  audience 
were  well-nigh  paralyzed  beneath  the  avalanche  of 
thought  that  descended  upon  them.  I  lost  the  man, 
but  the  subject  was  all  in  all.  I  returned  from  the 
ground,  dissatisfied  with  myself,  and  saying  within  me, 
1  < )  that  T  were  a  Christian  ! '  lie  preached  to  audiences 
as  large,  and  with  results  as  astonishing,  as  I  have  ever 
witnessed.  lb1  was  a  perfect  gentleman.  While  the 
circles  of  fashion  delighted  to  honor  him,  he  '  conde- 
scended  to  men  of  low  estate.'  He  asked  no  one  to 
stand  in  hi-  place  in  the  hour  of  t  rial ;  yet,  after  the 
sharpest  conflict  aid  most  glorious  mental  conquest,  he 
ready  to  wash  the  feet  of  the  humblest  saint. 
Moreover,  he  seemed  to  have  a  method  of  hiding  and 
diminishing  his  own  excellences,  while  he  sought  to 
magnify  tho>e  of  others.  He  was,  however,  as  far  as 
possible  from  anything  mean  or  groveling;  indeed, 
there  w&B  an  exquisite  delicacy  about  all  hi-  thoughts, 
illustrations,  and  manner-.  Hi-  mind  seemed  filled 
with  beautiful  analogies,  by  which  he  could  rise  from 
material  to  the  spiritual,  and  make  an  easy  path  to 
heaven  from  any  point  of  earth.     Wherever  he  went  he 

-  hailed  as  a  messenger  of  God,  and  whenever 
he  departed,  it  .-eemed  a-  if  an  angel  were  taking 
e." 

Along  with  these   extraordinary   men  young  Henry 


388  HISTORY    OF    THE 

B.  Bascom  appeared  in  the  Western  itinerancy.  Born 
in  Pennsylvania  in  1796,  lie  removed  to  Kentucky,  and 
thence  to  Ohio  in  1812,  and  the  same  year  became  a 
class-leader  and  exhorter.  The  next  year  he  joined  the 
conference,  and  began  the  itinerant  career,  which  soon 
rendered  his  fame  national,  as  one  of  the  most  noted 
pulpit  orators  of  the  new  world.  Down  to  1823  he 
filled  laborious  appointments  in  Ohio,  Western  Virginia, 
Tennessee,  and  Kentucky.  In  the  last  year  he  was 
elected  chaplain  to  Congress,  through  the  influence  of 
Henry  Clay.  At  the  close  of  the  session  of  Congress 
"  he  spent  some  time  in  Baltimore  and  its  neighborhood, 
and  by  the  remarkable  power  and  splendor  of  his 
preaching  well-nigh  entranced  a  large  portion  of  the 
community.  From  Baltimore  he  proceeded  to  Phila- 
delphia, and  thence  to  Harrisburg,  and,  wherever  he 
preached,  attracted  an  immense  throng  of  admiring 
hearers.  Having  finished  this  eastern  tour  he  obtained 
a  transfer  to  the  Pittsburgh  Conference,  and  was  sta- 
tioned in  the  city  of  Pittsburgh.  In  his  second  year  in 
this  conference  he  was  appointed  the  conference  mission- 
ary. In  1827  he  was  elected  president  of  Madison  Col- 
lege, in  Uniontown,  Pa.  He  accepted  the  place,  and,  in 
his  inaugural  address,  displayed  a  degree  of  rhetorical 
force  and  beauty  that  quite  electrified  his  audience.  In 
1829  he  resigned  the  presidency  of  Madison  College, 
and  accepted  an  agency  for  the  American  Colonization 
Society.  In  1832  he  was  elected  professor  of  Moral 
Science  and  Belles-lettres,  in  Augusta  College,  Ken 
tucky.  Here  he  remained  about  ten  years.  In  1838 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  was  conferred  upon 
him  by  the  Wesleyan  University,  at  Middletown, 
Conn.  ;  and  the  same  degree  was  subsequently  con- 
ferred bv  two  or  three  other  institutions.     In  1845  he 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  389 

was  honored  with  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  from 
the  La  Grange  College  in  Alabama.1 

He  was  a  delegate  in  the  General  Conference  oi 
1844,  when  the  Church  was  divided,  was  prominently 
active  in  that  event,  and  shared  in  the  Southern  Metnod- 
ist  Convention  at  Louisville  in  1845,  and  also  in  the 
Southern  General  Conference  of  184G,  by  wdiich  he  was 
appointed  editor  of  the  Southern  Methodist  Quarterly 
Review.  The  General  Conference  of  1849  elected  him 
bishop.  On  the  last  Sunday  of  July,  1850,  he  preached 
his  last  sermon  in  St.  Louis ;  an  effort  of  great  elo- 
quence, occupying  two  hours.  In  the  ensuing  Septem- 
ber he  died  at  Louisville,  aged  fifty-four  years. 

In  person  he  was  a  model  of  physical  dignity  and 
beauty;  tall,  well-proportioned,  with  perfectly  symmet- 
rical features,  black  and  dazzling  eyes,  and  a  forehead 
expanded  and  lofty,  "  a  very  throne  of  intellect."  He 
was  fastidious  in  his  apparel,  reticent  in  his  manners,  and 
habitually  seemed  morbidly  self-conscious.  He  published 
a  volume  of  sermons;  but  they  give  no  explanation  of 
his  peculiar  eloquence,  and  will  hardly  bear  critical  ex- 
amination. He  was  self-educated,  and  though  very 
thoroughly  bo,  escaped  not  the  usual  defects  of  self- 
training.  His  style  was  elaborate,  abounded  in  new 
coined  words,  and  was  sometimes  grandiloquent;  his 
imagination  was  exuberant,  too  often  excessive;  his 
argumentation  complicated,  his  thoughts  abrupt  and 
fragmentary.  His  sermons  were  brilliant  mosaics,  appar- 
ently composed  of  passages  which  had  been  laboriously 
prepared,  at  long  intervals,  and  without  much  relation 
to  the  discourse  as  a  whole.  They  larked  simplicity; 
were  artificial,  without  the  facility  or  ease  which  char- 
acterizes the  mastery  of  art  by  disguising  its  labor. 
'Sprague,  p,  586,  rod  Memoir  bj  Bishop  Kuvanagta. 


390  HISTORY    OF    THE 

But,  in  spite  of  his  defects,  his  power  has  seldom 
been  rivaled  in  the  American  pulpit ;  he  was  a  wonder 
of  genius  to  the  people,  and  drew  them  in  multitudes 
which  no  temple  could  accommodate. 

Thomas  A.  Morris,  a  man  entirely  contrasted  with 
Bascom,  and  destined  to  much  more  extensive  service 
in  the  Church,  joined  the  itinerancy  in  1816.  He  was 
born  on  the  west  side  of  the  Kanawha  River,  Kana- 
wha County,  live  miles  above  Charlestown,  in  Western 
Virginia,  in  1794.5  In  an  affectionate  tribute  to  his 
friend,  David  Young,  he  makes  some  allusions  to  his 
own  religious  history  :  "  Mr.  Young,"  he  says,  "  was  one 
of  the  few  Methodist  preachers  whom  I  knew  prior  to 
my  becoming  a  Methodist.  Our  acquaintance  began  in 
the  fall  of  1812,  when  he  was  presiding  elder  on  Musk- 
ingum District,  then  including  in  its  ample  range  Zanes- 
ville,  Marietta,  and  Northwestern  Virginia,  where  I 
resided,  and  where  he  was  perfectly  at  home,  being 
himself  a  native  of  Washington  County,  Virginia. 
Most  of  my  early  impressions  and  views  of  Methodism 
were  derived  from  him.  It  is  true,  I  had  felt  conviction 
for  sin  from  childhood,  and  that  Robert  Caseboult,  then 
a  class-leader,  had  taken  interest  for  me,  and  talked 
with  me,  before  I  heard  Young,  and  I  was  seriously  in- 
quiring for  the  way  of  life.  But  in  July,  1813,  while  I 
listened  to  David  Young,  preaching  at  a  camp-meeting 
on  the  parable  of  the  sower,  I  was  brought  to  form  a 
solemn  purpose  to  seek  earnestly  for  salvation  till  I 
should  obtain  it.  In  August  I  joined  a  small  country 
class  on  trial.  I  had  prayed  in  secret  for  months,  but 
made  little  progress  till  I  took  this  decisive  step,  and 
thus  drew  a  separating  line  from  my  irreligious  asso- 
ciates. The  conflict  with  sin  thus  renewed  continued 
6  Extract  from  one  of  his  letters,  in  Western  Christian  Advocate, 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        39, 

;ill  sometime  in  November,  when  I  obtained  some  relief 
and  comfort,  and  on  Christmas-day  T  received  a  clear 
sense  of  pardon  and  a  full  '  sj>irit  of  adoption.'  In  the 
mean  time  I  missed  none  of  Young's  quarterly  meetings. 
At  one  of  them  he  baptized  me  in  the  presence  of  a  mul- 
titude ;  and  the  same  day  on  which  he  poured  the  water 
on  my  head  the  Lord  poured  plentifully  his  Spirit  into 
my  heart.  When  I  was  recommended  by  the  society 
for  license  to  preach,  he  examined  me  before  the  quar 
terly  conference.  He  also  wrote  and  signed  my  first 
license  to  preach,  dated  April  2,  1814.  In  1815  he  em- 
ployed me  as  junior  preacher  on  a  circuit,  and  in  1816 
I  was  admitted  on  trial  by  the  Ohio  Conference.  From 
that  till  1818,  being  separated  in  the  work,  our  acquaint- 
ance was  perpetuated  by  free  correspondence  ;  but  from 
1818  to  L820,  he,  being  superannuated,  was  my  constant 
hearer  in  Zanesville,  where  he  resided.  lie  continued 
his  efforts  in  every  practicable  way  for  my  improve- 
ment, and,  indeed,  till  I  graduated  to  elder's  orders,  he 
took  as  much  interest  in  my  ministerial  education  as  if 
[had  been  his  own  son."6  Years  later  he  remarks: 
"  Reared  in  a  rural  district  of  a  new  country,  amid  agri- 
cultural pursuits,  I  was  inured  io  toils  and  perils,  which 
have  been  of  seivice  to  me  in  every  relation  of  subse- 
quent  life.  'By  grace  I  am  what  lam.'  An  expe- 
rience of  over  fifty  years  confirms  my  conviction  that 
in  Christ  alone  are  pardon,  peace,  and  heaven.  With 
him  in  view  none  need  fail.  'Wherefore,  he  is  able 
also  to  save  them  to  the  uttermost  that  come  unto  ('">,] 
b\  him.  seeing  he  ever  liveth  to  make  intercession  inv 
them.'  The  first  seven  years  of  my  regular  ministry 
were  year-  of  some  affliction  and  much  discouragement 

•"  My  Father  in  the  Gospel,"    by  Bishop  T.  A.  Morris,   it   Ladies' 
tory. 


392  HISTORY    OF    THE 

consequent  thereon.  Among  the  forms  of  disease  unaer 
which  I  suffered  were  liver  complaint,  erysipelas,  chills 
and  fever,  nervous  prostration  and  depression,  and  in 
flammatory  rheumatism,  to  all  of  which  was  finally 
added  paralysis  of  my  left  foot,  hand,  and  eye.  I  have 
ever  continued  in  the  work  through  all  these  afflictions  ; 
and  by  God's  blessing  upon  constant  horseback  exer 
cise,  irrespective  of  season  or  weather,  I  recovered  my 
health." 

His  itinerant  ministry  in  the  West  was  extensive  and 
successful  down  to  1834,  when  he  was  appointed  the 
first  editor  of  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  at  Cin- 
cinnati, and  issued  the  first  number  of  that  influential 
paper  on  the  2d  of  May.  In  1836  he  was  elected  bishop, 
which  office  he  has  continued  to  sustain  with  pre-eminent 
wisdom  down  to  our  day,  being  for  many  years  the 
senior  of  the  episcopate.  During  the  perilous  crises  of 
the  denomination,  in  the  antislavery  controversy  and 
the  southern  secession,  he  has  guided  the  Church  with 
unwavering  prudence.  In  the  hour  of  our  greatest  na- 
tional trial  he  wrote  with  characteristic  serenity,  and  a 
foresight  which  now  seems  prophetic:  "I  am  buoyant  in 
spirit,  very  seldom  feel  discouraged.  I  am  hopeful  as 
to  the  world's  conversion;  believing  that  will  be  the  final 
result  of  Christ's  Gospel.  I  am  confident  that  Method- 
ism will  contribute  its  share  in  that  enterprise ;  that  it 
will  survive  all  opposition,  and  triumph  gloriously.  I 
am  decidedly  hopeful  as  to  our  country.  I  believe  that 
the  rebellion  will  be  entirely  conquered,  the  union  of 
states  re-established,  slavery  abolished,  the  law  vindi- 
cated, confidence  and  social  order  restored ;  that  we 
shall  have  a  stronger  government,  a  greater  and  better 
country  than  ever,  more  respected  at  home  and  abroad, 
with  an  increasing  tide  of  prosperity  ;  and,  finally,  that 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.         393 

the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  will  have  less  obstruc- 
tion, and  will  operate  more  effectively  hereafter  than 
heretofore.  It  is  true,  I  may  not  witness  all  these  de- 
sired results,  for  with  me  'time  is  short;'  yet  I  take  a 
lively  interest  in  them.  I  desire  the  prayers  of  all  good 
people,  that  the  grace  of  Christ  in  me  may  triumph 
over  all  the  evils  of  my  fallen  nature,  and  save  me  in 
heaven." 

Bishop  Morris  is  short  in  stature,  corpulent,  with  a 
ruddy  complexion,, and  an  intellectual  brow;  extremely 
cautious  hi  speech,  and  reserved  in  manners;  brief  in  his 
sermons,  not  usually  exceeding  thirty  minutes,  but  ex- 
ceedingly pertinent  in  thought,  and  terse  and  telling  in 
style;  among  his  familiar  friends  a  most  entertaining 
talker,  given  to  reminiscences  of  early  itinerant  adven- 
tures and  humorous  anecdotes  ;  a  man  of  most  whole- 
some mind,  tranquil  piety,  and  soundest  judgment. 
He  has  contributed  considerably  to  the  literature  of 
the  Church  in  a  volume  of  sermons,  remarkable  for 
their  condensed  sense,  practical  appropriateness,  and 
pure  and  vigorous  style ;  a  volume  of  biographical 
and  historical  sketches  of  the  western  ministry,  and 
numerous  editorial  and  other  fragmentary  productions. 
He  lingers  in  broken  health,  but  in  the  unbroken  affec 
tion  and  veneration  of  the  Church. 

Another  pre  eminent  preacher,  John  P.  Durbin,  en 
tered  the  western  itinerancy  in  1818,  though  his  name 
does  not  appear  in  the  Minutes  till  1820.  He  was  bora 
in  Bourbon  County,  Ky.,  in  1800.  His  education  up  to 
bis  fourteenth  year  was  of  the  commonest  kind  of  the 
frontier.  At  fourteen  year-  of  age  he  was  apprenticed 
to  a  cabinet-maker  in  Paris,  Ky.,  and  served  out  his 
time.  In  the  autumn  of  l-i-  Ik-  waa  converted.  One 
ofliis  young  friends  wa&  pungently  convicted,  struge 


394  HISTORY    OF    THE 

hard  and  long,  and  was  powerfully  and  sudden  y  con- 
verted in  his  presence.  He  assumed  that  his  experience 
must  be  of  the  same  kind  in  order  to  be  genuine ;  but 
as  it  was  gradual  and  tranquil,  without  violent  signs, 
he  began  to  distrust  it,  when,  by  a  gentle,  yet  clear  im- 
pression on  his  mind,  he  was  convinced  that  God,  fo? 
Christ's  sake,  had  pardoned  his  sins  and  accepted  him 
in  the  Redeemer. 

He  soon  felt  that  it  was  his  duty  to  preach  the  gos- 
pel, although  he  had  not  yet  become  a  member  of  the 
Church.  As  if  by  inspiration,  his  grandfather,  a  pioneer 
of  Methodism  in  Kentucky,  said  to  him  suddenly  one 
day,  "  Are  you  not  concerned  about  preaching  the  gos- 
pel ?  "  It  was  to  him  like  a  flash  of  lightning  in  a  clear 
sky.  He  took  counsel  of  that  early  frontier  apostle, 
Benjamin  Lakin,  joined  the  Church  one  week  in  No- 
vember, and  in  the  next  week  another  of  the  apostles  of 
the  West,  Absalom  Hunt,  asked  a  recommendation  for 
him  to  the  quarterly  Conference,  where  he  was  licensed 
to  preach,  by  still  another  western  apostle,  Alexan- 
der Cummings,  and  sent  to  Limestone  Circuit.  The 
next  year  the  "  old  Western  Conference  "  was  divided, 
and  he  went  alone  into  the  northwest  corner  of  Ohio, 
where  the  Indians  still  roved,  to  look  after  some  one 
hundred  members  of  the  Church,  who  were  scattered 
through  the  wilderness  over  a  circuit  of  some  two 
hundred  miles. 

Here  he  began  his  studies  in  the  cabins,  where  there 
was  but  one  room,  which  served  for  chapel,  parlor, 
kitchen,  dining-room,  and  chamber  for  the  whole  family. 
On  this  circuit  he  found  an  old  German  who  had  Dr. 
Clarke's  Commentary  in  numbers.  He  borrowed  them, 
slipped  two  numbers  at  a  time  into  a  tin  canister  about 
four  inches  'u  diameter,  and  lashed  it  behind  his  saddle. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        395 

and  thus  carried  it  round  his  circuit.  As  soon  as 
pieaching  was  over,  and  the  class  dismissed,  he  sat  down 
i-i  the  midst  of  a  frontier  family,  with  pen  and  ink,  to 
study  and  take  notes  of  Clarke,  especially  on  the  Pen- 
tateuch and  New  Testament.  Not  a  line  escaped  him. 
To  tills  hook  he  added  Wesley's  and  Fletcher's  works, 
all  of  which  lie  thoroughly  mastered  in  the  western  huts, 
generally  reading  in  the  winter  by  firelight,  which  was 
made  by  pine-knots  and  dry  wood,  prepared  by  the 
boys,  who  used  to  wonder  at  him  as  a  living  marvel. 

The  next  year  he  was  sent  into  Indiana,  and  had  for 
his  colleague  James  Collord,  later,  for  many  years,  the 
printer  of  the  Methodist  Book  Concern,  New  York.  At 
Collord's  instance  he  began  to  study  English  grammar, 
and  from  him  he  received  much  instruction.  He  used  to 
commit  the  rules  to  memory,  and  read  the  examples  and 
notes  as  he  rode  on  horseback  from  one  appointment  to 
another. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  year  he  attracted  the  notice 
of  Dr.  Martin  Ruter,  who  advised  him  to  study  Latin 
and  Greek,  and  gave  him  a  grammar  or  two.  He 
studied  indefatigably,  and,  as  he  was  stationed  the 
third  year  in  Hamilton,  Ohio,  about  twelve  miles  from 
the  Miami  Univer.-ity,  (at  Oxford,)  he  used  to  go  to  the 
university  on  Monday,  stay  all  the  week,  pursuing  his 
studies,  and  return  on  Friday  evening  to  prepare  for 
the  Sunday.  At  first  this  caused  some  dissatisfaction 
among  the  people  ;  but  when  they  saw  his  thirst  foi 
knowledge,  and  his  fidelity  and  efficiency  on  Sunday, 
tiny  had  the  good  sense  to  approve  his  course.  The 
next  year  he  was  stationed  in  Lebanon,  and  was  still 
guided  by  the  counsels  of  Ruter.  The  family  in  which 
he  resided  there  still  relate  with  interest  the  peculiar 
industrv  of  their  boarder.  He  transcribed  the  Latin 
D— 26  d 


896  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  Greek  grammars,  and  putting  the  copy  on  paste- 
board, suspended  it  before  him  for  more  easy  reference. 
The  next  year  he  was  stationed  in  Cincinnati,  and  was 
admitted  to  the  Cincinnati  College,  with  the  personal 
countenance  of  Dr.  Ruter  and  the  late  President  Har- 
rison. Here  he  finished  his  collegiate  course,  and  was 
admitted  to  the  degree  of  A.  M.  without  being  required 
to  take  first  the  degree  of  A.  B. 

After  taking  his  degree  at  Cincinnati,  he  was  ap- 
pointed Professor  of  Languages  in  Augusta  College, 
Ky.,  and  spent  the  ensuing  year  in  traveling  to  recruit 
his  health,  and  to  collect  money  for  the  college.  In  this 
way  he  first  became  known  in  the  eastern  cities.  In  1 831, 
without  his  knowledge,  and  in  his  absence,  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States,  by  a  large  vote,  elected  him  chap- 
lain. His  sermons  in  the  capitol  are  remembered  still 
for  their  originality  and  power. 

In  1832  he  was  elected  professor  of  natural  sciences 
in  the  Wesleyan  University,  Middletown,  Conn.,  but 
resigned  immediately  upon  being  elected  editor  of  the 
"Christian  Advocate  and  Journal."  In  1834  he  was 
elected  president  of  Dickinson  College.  In  1842  he 
had  leave  of  absence  to  visit  Europe  and  the  East.  He 
returned  in  1843,  was  a  member  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1844,  and  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  great 
struggle  which  divided  the  Church.  His  speech  in 
reply  to  Bishop  Soule,  and  the  rejoinder  to  the  Protest 
of  the  southern  party,  are  notable  evidences  of  his  power 
in  that  body.  In  1844  he  published  his  "Observations 
in  Europe,"  and  in  1845  his  "  Observations  in  the  East." 
He  retired  from  the  college  in  1845,  and  subsequently 
had  charge  of  stations  in  Philadelphia,  and  also  traveled 
the  Philadelphia  District.  In  1850  he  was  appointed 
unanimously,  by  the  bishops,  missionary  secretary,  in 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUitCH.         397 

the  place  of  Dr.  Pitman,  who  had  resigned  on  account  of 
ill  health.  The  General  Conference  of  1852  reappointed 
him  to  the  same  post,  which  he  has  ever  since  occupied 
with  admirable  ability. 

Dr.  Durbin  is  distinguished  both  as  a  preacher  and 
an  executive  officer.  It  is  difficult  to  describe  his 
preaching.  He  begins  with  a  tone,  look,  and  style 
which  would  at  once  damp  all  favorable  expectation 
were  it  not  for  his  general  fame.  The  statement  of  his 
subject,  and  the  outline  of  his  discourse,  are  not  usually 
remarkable ;  but  as  he  advances  some  unique  thought, 
or  some  ordinary  thought  uniquely  presented,  startles 
the  interest  of  the  hearer,  and  his  attention  is  riveted 
through  the  remainder  of  the  sermon.  The  entire  self- 
possession  and  agreeable  facility  with  which  the  preacher 
proceeds  in  his  discourse  delights  the  hearer  by  the 
relief  which  his  manner  thus  affords  to  his  feeble  and 
peculiar  voice.  It  is  similar  to  pleasant,  artless,  but 
intelligent  conversation.  The  frequent  occurrence  of 
striking  passages,  striking  often  by  their  beauty,  but 
often  also  by  the  mere  manner  of  their  utterance,  yet 
always  endued  with  a  strange,  a  mystic  power  over  the 
Boul  of  the  hearer,  calls  forth  spontaneous  ejaculations  or 
sudden  tears.  He  has  also  a  habit  of  introducing  into 
almost  every  discourse  some  odd  or  equivocal  specu- 
lative suggestion  which  never  Mis  to  provoke  thought 
on  the  part  of  his  hearers. 

His  sermons  are  usually  long,  but  no  one  tires  of 
them;  no  one  hears  the  last  sentence  without  regret, 
nor  leaves  the  church  without  a  vivid,  if  not  a  profound, 
impression  of  the  discourse.  His  language  is  remarka- 
bly simple.  He  excels  in  illustration,  in  picturesque 
description,  and  in  pathos. 

Men  of  genius  are  usually  men  of  strong  sensibility— 

d 


398  HISTORY    OF    THE 

and  this  is  one  secret  of  their  power;  bat  at  the  same  time 
it  renders  them  liable  to  variable  moods,  especially  to 
failures  in  public  speaking.  Dr.  Durbin's  failures  were 
not  infrequent ;  but  his  hearers,  if  sent  away  some- 
times with  a  downright  disappointment,  knew  that 
at  the  next  time  they  should  probably  be  more  than 
compensated  by  one  of  his  triumphant  efforts ;  that 
the  sun,  temporarily  behind  the  mists,  will  again 
burst  forth  and  blaze  in  the  zenith.  A  writer  in 
the  "  Southern  Christian  Advocate,"  speaking  of  his 
first  sermon  in  Philadelphia,  says:  "In  the  Academy  it 
was  that  the  western  professor  preached  his  first  sermon 
to  an  eastern  audience;  nor  did  his  effort  justify  his 
fame  more  than  his  appearance,  for  it  was  a  failure. 
And  the  wiseacres  said  loudly,  '  I  told  you  it  was  a 
goose,  and  not  a  swan.'  The  young  professor  was  dis- 
heartened, so  that  although  he  preached  other  sermons, 
not  so  unsuccessful,  yet  he  left  the  people  only  in  a  state 
willing  enough  to  hear  him  again,  but  not  especially 
anxious.  A  year  elapsed,  and  he  was  again  in  the 
Academy  pulpit,  and  the  subject  of  his  first  sermon 
was  reannounced :  the  divinity  of  our  Lord.  It  was 
then  a  swan's  song,  sweet,  clear,  full,  transcendent ; 
only  not  a  death-burst." 

He  has  been  distinguished  by  executive  ability  in 
every  sphere  of  his  public  life ;  in  no  one  of  them  has 
he  ever  failed.  A  capacity  for  details,  practical  skill, 
promptness,  energy  that  never  tires,  because  it  moves 
always  calmly,  though  incessantly,  the  power  to  carry 
with  him  the  interest  of  the  people,  these  have  been  the 
elements  of  his  strength,  and  have  rendered  him  one  of 
the  most  capable  officers  in  the  Church. 

Thus  did  the  West  raise  up,  in  these  years,  men  who 
were  not  only  adapted  to  its  own  peculiar  frontier  work, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         399 

out  some  of  whom,  by  their  genius  and  self-culture,  were 
fitted  to  take  the  highest  positions  in  the  denomination, 
and  to  become  the  chief  attractions  of  its  eastern  pul- 
pits. They  were  now  extending  Methodism,  with  a 
sort  of  triumphal  march,  all  over  the  "  Bedstone  coun- 
try, n  the  Northwestern  Territory,  the  Holston  Mountain 
Valleys,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee.  It  had  already 
become  the  predominant  form  of  religion  in  these  vast 
regions,  and  was  moulding  into  Christian  civilization 
their  rapidly  growing  populations.  Meanwhile  its 
itinerants  were  extending  their  victories  southward 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  We  have  followed 
Gibson  in  his  romantic  and  heroic  mission  to  Xatchez 
as  early  as  1799,  and  seen  the  labors  aud  sufferings  of  his 
first  humble  itinerant  reinforcements,  and  the  arrival  of 
Learner  Blackman  in  1804,  as  also  the  westward  ad- 
vance of  the  South  Carolina  Conference  itinerants,  and 
the  southward  progress  of  those  of  Eastern  Tenuessee 
into  Alabama,  all  pushing  southwesterly  toward  the 
standard  planted  on  the  distant  Mississippi  by  Gibson. 

From  the  Western  Conference  of  1805  Asbury  dis- 
patched Elisha  W.  Bowman  to  survey  the  still  farther 
South,  and  introduce  Methodism  among  the  English  set- 
tlements of  Louisiana.  He  made  his  way  to  New  Orleans 
and  Opelousas,  and  the  next  year  the  name  of  the  latter 
appears,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  annual  Minutes,  witl 
Bowman  as  its  circuit  preacher.  It  is  placed  under  the 
control  of  Blaekman,  who  had  hitherto  been  traveling 
the  Bolitary  circuit  of  the  South  Mississippi,  that  of 
Natchez,  but  who  now  became  presiding  elder  of  the 
u Mississippi  District,*'  which  \\a>  first  reported  in  i  - 
There  remains  a  long  letter  from  Bowman  to  Burke, 
giving  an  interesting  account  of  his  exploration,  in 
whieh  he  says  hifi  wa-   "through  a  perilous  wil- 


±00  HISTORY    OF    THE 

derness  to  the  city  of  New  Orleans." 7  u  As  for  the  set- 
tlements of  this  country,"  he  continues,  "there  are  none 
that  are  composed  of  Americans.  From  Baton  Rouge,  the 
Spanish  garrison,  which  stands  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  down  two  hundred  miles,  it  is  settle  3 
immediately  on  each  bank  of  the  river  by  French  and 
Spaniards.  When  I  reached  the  city  I  was  much  disap- 
pointed in  finding  but  few  American  people  there,  and 
a  majority  of  that  few  may  truly  be  called  the  beasts  of 
men.  On  Sunday,  when  I  came  to  the  Capitol,  I  found 
the  doors  all  locked,  and  the  house  inaccessible.  I 
found  a  few  drunken  sailors  and  Frenchmen  about  the 
walks  of  the  house,  and  I  preached  to  them  in  the  open 
air.  The  next  Sunday,  when  I  came  with  my  landlord 
and  a  few  others,  we  found  the  doors  again  locked,  and 
I  again  preached  to  ten  or  twelve  persons  in  the  open 
air.  I  went  again  to  the  officers,  but  got  no  satisfac- 
tion. In  the  evening,  as  I  passed  along  the  street,  I 
heard  them  pouring  out  heavy  curses  on  the  Methodists, 
and  saying,  '  He  is  a  Methodist ;  lock  him  out.'  And 
they  told  me  plainly  I  was  not  to  have  the  privilege  of 
the  house.  One  of  the  officers  told  me  that  the  Meth- 
odists were  a  dangerous  people,  and  ought  to  be  dis- 
couraged. The  next  Sunday  I  preached  to  a  few  strag- 
gling people  in  the  open  street.  The  Lord's  da^  is  the 
day  of  general  rant  in  this  city.  Public  balls  are  held, 
merchandise  of  every  kind  is  carried  on,  public  sales 
wagons  running,  and  drums  beating;  and  thus  is  the 
Sabbath  spent.  I  sought  in  vain  for  a  house  to  preach 
in.  Several  persons  offered  to  rent  me  a  house,  but  1 
have  not  money  to  rent  one.  My  expenses  I  found  to 
be  about  two  dollars  a  day  for  myself  and  horse,  and 

7  It  is  given  entire  in  Bishop  M'Tyeire's  account  of  Nolley,  in  "Bio 
graphical  Sketches  of  Itinerant  Ministers,"  p.  254. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         401 

my  money  pretty  well  spent.  I  tried  to  sell  my  horse, 
but  could  not  get  forty  dollars  for  him;  Thus  I  was  in 
this  difficult  situation,  without  a  friend  to  advise  me. 
I  was  three  hundred  miles  from  Brother  Blackman,  and 
could  get  no  advice  from  him;  and  what  to  do  I  did  not 
know.  I  could  have  no  access  to  the  people,  and  to  go 
back  to  Natchez. is  to  do  nothing,  as  there  was  a  suffi- 
cient supply  of  preachers  for  that  part ;  to  leave  my 
station  without  Mr.  Asbury's  direction  was  like  death 
to  me,  and  to  stay  here  I  could  do  nothing.  But,  by 
inquiring,  I  heard  of  a  settlement  of  American  people 
about  two  hundred  miles  to  the  west  and  northwest. 
By  getting  a  small  boat,  and  crossing  the  lakes,  I  could 
reach  the  Opelousas  country  ;  and,  as  I  was  left  to  think 
by  myself,  I  thought  this  most  advisable.  I  accordingly, 
on  the  17th  Jay  of  December,  shook  off  the  dirt  from 
my  feet  against  this  ungodly  city  of  New  Orleans,  and 
resolved  to  try  the  watery  waste  and  pathless  desert. 
I  traveled  tifty  miles  up  the  Mississippi  River,  and 
crossed  to  a  river  that  forces  itself  out  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  runs  into  the  sea  in  a  southwest  direction,  down 
which  river  I  traveled  fifty  miles,  and  then  turned  a 
western  course  fifteen  miles,  through  a  cypress  swamp, 
t<»  the  lake.  Here  the  mosquitoes  like  to  have  eaten  up 
both  me  and  my  horse.  A  lew  Spaniards  lived  on  this 
lake.  I  got  two  large  canoes  of  them,  and  built  a  plat- 
form on  them,  on  which  I  put  my  horse.  I  hired  two 
of  the  Spaniards  to  go  with  me  across  the  lakes,  for 
which  I  paid  them  thirteen  dollars  and  a  half,  and, 
through  the  mercy  of  God,  I  had  a  safe  passage  through 
four  lakes  and  a  large  bay.  I  landed  a  little  south  of 
the  mouth  of  the  river  O'Tash.  A  few  Frenchmen  are 
living  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  a  few  American 
families  are  scattered  along  tin-  bay  and  river.     I  have 


402  HISTORY    OF    THE 

now  three  dollars  left,  but  God  is  as  able  to  feed  me  two 
years  on  two  dollars  as  he  was  to  feed  Elijah  at  the 
brook,  or  five  thousand  with  a  few  loaves  and  fishes. 
I  traveled  up  the  west  side  of  the  river  O'Tash  eighty 
miles.  A  few  families  of  Americans  are  scattered 
among  them,  but  I  could  not  find  two  families  together. 
I  then  passed  through  a  small  tribe  of  Indians,  and 
crossed  the  Vermillion  River,  which  runs  into  the  sea  in 
a  southwest  direction.  The  next  day  I  reached  the 
Opelousas  country,  and  the  next  I  reached  the  Catholic 
church.  I  was  surprised  to  see  race  paths  at  the  church 
door.  Here  I  found  a  few  Americans,  who  were  swear- 
ing with  almost  every  breath  ;  and  when  I  reproved 
them,  they  told  me  that  the  priest  swore  as  hard  as 
they  did.  They  said  he  would  play  cards  and  dance 
with  them  every  Sunday  evening  after  mass.  And, 
strange  to  tell,  he  keeps  a  racehorse ;  in  a  word,  prac- 
tices every  abomination.  I  told  them  plainly  if  they 
did  not  quit  swearing  they  and  their  priest  would  go 
to  hell  together." 

About  twenty  miles  farther  he  found  another  settle- 
ment of  American  people.  "They  know,"  he  says, 
"very  little  more  about  the  nature  of  salvation  than 
the  untaught  Indians.  Some  of  them,  after  I  had 
preached  to  them,  asked  me  what  I  meant  by  the  fall 
of  man,  and  when  it  was  that  he  fell.  Thus  they  are 
perishing  for  lack  of  knowledge,  and  are  truly  in  a  pit- 
iable condition.  I  have  to  teach  them  to  sing,  and  in 
fact  to  do  everything  that  is  like  worshiping  God.  I  find 
it  also  very  difficult  to  get  them  to  attend  meetings,  for 
if  they  come  once  they  think  they  have  done  me  a  very 
great  favor." 

About  thirty  miles  farther  he  found  still  another 
small   settlement  of  English  people,  who  were  in  as 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         403 

low  a  state  of  ignorance  as  the  others.  "But,"  he 
8,  "I  get  as  many  of  them  together  as  I  can,  and 
preach  Jesus  Christ  to  them."  "  O,  my  God,  have 
mercy  on  the  souls  of  this  people  !  "  adds  the  adventur- 
ous itinerant.  "  Every  day  that  I  travel  I  have  to 
swim  through  creeks  or  swamps,  and  I  am  wet  from 
my  head  to  my  feet ;  and  some  days,  from  morning  till 
night,  T  am  dripping  with  water.  I  tie  all  my  'plunder' 
last  on  my  horse,  and  take  him  by  the  bridle,  and  swim 
sometimes  a  hundred  yard-,  and  sometimes  farther. 
My  horse's  legs  are  now  skinned  and  rough  to  his  hock 
joints,  and  I  have  the  rheumatism  in  all  my  joints. 
About  eighty  miles  from  here,  I  am  informed,  there  is  a 
considerable  settlement  of  American  people;  but  I  can- 
not get  to  them  at  this  time  as  the  swamps  are  swim- 
ming for  miles  ;  but  as  soon  as  the  waters  fall  I  intend 
to  visit  them.  I  have  great  difficulties  in  this  country, 
there  are  no  laws  to  suppress  vice  of  any  kind,  so 
that  the  Sabbath  is  spent  in  frolicking  and  gambling. 
What  I  have  suffered  in  body  and  mind  my  pen  is  not 
able  to  communicate  to  you;  but  this  I  can  say,  while 
my  body  is  wet  with  water,  and  chilled  with  cold,  my 
soul  is  filled  with  heavenly  fire.  Glory  to  God  and  the 
Lamb!  I  have  not  a  wish  but  that  the  will  of  God 
may  be  done  in  me,  through  me,  and  by  me.  And  I 
can  now  say,  with  St.  Paul,  that  'I  count  not  my  life 
dear  unto  me,  so  that  I  may  save  some.'  I  am  now 
more  than  one  thousand  miles  from  you,  and  know  not 
that  I  shall  ever  see  you  again  ;  but  I  hope  to  meet  you 
one  day  in  the  land  of  rest." 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  these  pioneer  evangeli-N  of 
the  West.  Bowman  could  not  be  driven  from  those 
morally  desolate  regions.  He  kept  his  ground  two 
years,  formed  a  circuit,  and   in   ili<-  second  year  was 


404  HISTORY     OF    THE 

joined    by    an     equally    heroic    missionaiy,    Thomas 
Lasley. 

In  1807  Jacob  Young,  whose  extraordinary  ministerial 
achievements  have  already  often  claimed  our  attention 
and  wonder,  was  present  with  Asbury  and  other 
itinerants  at  the  house  of  Tiffin,  Chillicothe,  Ohio, 
attending  the  Western  Conference.  Asbury  took  him 
into  an  apartment,  aside,  read  to  him  Jacob's  jour- 
ney from  his  father's  house  to  Padan-aram,  pausing 
where  the  patriarch  stopped  to  rest  at  night,  with  a 
stone  for  a  pillow.  Rising,  the  bishop  placed  his  hands 
on  the  head  of  the  young  itinerant,  and  commissioned 
him  to  go  down  the  Mississippi,  and  take  charge  of  the 
Natchez  District.  "  Go,"  he  said,  "  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord,  do  your  duty,  and  God  will  be  with  you."  Then 
turning  away,  he  left  Young  alone,  startled  at  the  order, 
and  said  no  more  to  him  on  the  subject  till  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  session,  when  he  "read  off  the  appoint- 
ments," announcing  "Mississippi  District,  Jacob  Young." 
Five  circuits,  with  as  many  preachers,  were  assigned 
him.  After  the  doxology  and  benediction  Young  pro- 
claimed to  his  little  band  that  they  would  rendezvous 
at  "  Cage's  Bend,  on  Cumberland  River,  Tennessee." 
M'Kendree  conducted  him  on  his  way.  They  reached 
the  house  of  Dr.  Hynes,  (famous  in  the  local  annals  of 
Methodism  in  Kentucky,)  in  Clarke  County,  Ky.  There, 
after  writing  him  instructions  for  his  work,  M'Kendree 
"  knelt  down  and  commended  me,"  writes  Young,  "  to 
God  in  solemn  prayer.  Dr.  Hynes  shouted  aloud,  his 
pious  lady  praised  the  Lord;  the  pious  Martha  wept 
bitterly.  My  fine  Arabian  horse  being  brought  to  the 
gate,  I  took  my  saddle-bags  on  my  arm,  and  gave  my 
friends  the  parting  hand.  Martha  followed  to  the  gate, 
and  gave  me  a  vest  pattern  and  a  silver  dollar.      I 


METHODIST    EPISCOPVL     CHUBGE        405 

mounted,  and  rode  away,  traveling  nearly  two  hundred 
miles  alone.  The  vows  of  the  Almighty  were  upon  me. 
My  field  of  labor  was  large,  in  a  strange  country,  far 
from  home.  In  due  time  T  came  to  the  place  of  rendez- 
vous. The  preachers  met  me  according  to  appointment, 
and  we  spent  two  or  three  days  making  preparations  to 
pass  through  the  wilderness,  from  Nashville  to  Xatchez, 
which  was  then  considered  a  dangerous  road,  often  in- 
fested by  robbers.  We  bought  a  pack-horse  and  saddle, 
and  other  things  necessary  for  a  long  journey.  Here 
we  held  a  three  days'  meetiug,  which  was  attended 
with  much  good.  From  this  place  we  rode  to  Liberty 
Hill,  between  Nashville  and  Franklin,  where  we  met 
with  James  Ward,  presiding  elder  of  the  district,  and 
Joseph  Oglesby,  circuit  preacher  in  charge.  Here  we 
had  an  excellent  camp-meeting.  We  then  rode  to  the 
town  of  Franklin,  put  up  with  Major  Murry  and  Lewis 
Garret,  where  we  laid  in  our  stores  for  the  wilderness. 
The  first  day  we  rode  about  thirty  miles.  About  sun- 
down we  halted,  and  tied  our  hordes  to  the  trees.  One 
of  our  company  being  still  behind,  came  up  while  we 
were  cooking  supper.  We  had  our  camp  kettle,  every 
man  had  hi-  own  knife,  and  we  made  wooden  forks." 

Thus  they  journeyed  on,  forty  or  fifty  miles  a  day, 
through  Indian  tribes — the  Chickasaws  and  Choctaws — 
and  all  kinds  of  frontier  hardships.  Arriving  at  Fort 
Gib<on,  they  pitched  their  tent  "  on  the  Common," 
and  soon  after  met  Blackman,  Bowman,  and  Lasley, 
the  only  three  preachers  of  the  country.  These  were 
about  to  return  ;  but  with  Young  were  Richard 
B  wning,  John  Travis,  Zedekiah  M'Minn,  James 
Axley,  (a  host  in  himself',)  and  Anthony  Houston.  In 
two  days  the  new  itinerants  hud  dispersed  to  their  hard 
work. 


406  HISTORY    OF    THE 

About  two  years  Young  continued  to  travel  this 
great  district,  through  scenes  of  wild  life  the  most 
incredible,  often  swimming  rivers,  losing  himself  in 
woods  and  swamps,  making  his  way  by  Indian  trails, 
lodging  in  filthy  cabins,  and  encountering  at  many  of 
his  appointments  the  most  godless,  reckless,  hardy,  and 
degraded  population  of  the  whole  American  frontier; 
many  of  them  men  of  high  crimes,  who  had  escaped 
thither  from  the  retributions  of  justice  in  older  settle- 
ments. Lorenzo  Dow,  in  his  eccentric  wanderings, 
reached  these  regions,  and  for  some  time  co-operated 
strenuously  with  the  pioneers.  Though  a  New  England 
man,  Young  found  him  as  competent  as  any  of  his  itin- 
erants for  frontier  service,  and  bore  him  along  over  his 
immense  district,  both  of  them  preaching  night  and  day 
to  rude,  half-civilized  throngs  in  the  forests.  Axley's 
field  was  the  Catahoolah  and  Washita 8  Circuits,  where 
he  labored  mightily,  and  was  in  great  favor  with  many 
of  the  rudest  settlers,  though  fiercely  persecuted  by 
others.  He  was  "out  of  money,"  says  Young,  "and 
his  clothing  very  ragged ;  we  made  him  up  some  money 
to  buy  him  some  clothes,  and  sent  it  to  him,  but  he  paid 
the  money  out  for  flooring-boards.  He  then  went  into 
the  forest,  and  cut  down  pine-trees,  and  hewed  them 
with  his  own  hands ;  next,  borrowed  a  yoke  of  oxen, 
and  hauled  them  together ;  finally,  he  called  the  neigh- 
bors to  raise  the  house,  which  he  covered  with  shingles, 
made  with  his  own  hands.  He  built  his  pulpit,  cut  out 
his  doors  and  windows,  bought  him  boards,  and  made 
seats.  He  then  gave  notice  that  the  meeting  house  was 
ready,  and  if  the  people  would  come  together  he  would 
preach  to  them.  They  all  flocked  out  to  hear  him.  He 
preached  several  times,  then  read  the  General  Rules, 
8  Young  so  represents  it.     The  Minutes  say  Opelousas. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHLRCII.  407 

and  told  them  if  they  would  conform  to  those  rules  he 
would  take  them  into  the  Methodist  Church.  But  he 
warned  them  faithfully,  if  they  did  not  intend  to  con- 
form, not  to  join.  The  first  day  he  opened  the  church 
door  eighteen  joined.  Axley  informed  me  almost  every 
week  how  he  was  succeeding.  A  friend  wrote  me  a 
Utter  informing  me  that  the  chapel  was  finished,  and  he 
had  named  it  Axley  Chapel ;  that  Axley  had  conducted 
himself  with  so  much  propriety,  that  neither  man  nor 
devils  could  find  any  fault  with  him."  Axley  thus  built 
with  his  own  hands  the  first  Methodist  Church  in 
Louisiana. 

After  toiling  there  alone  many  months  "  our  beloved 
Brother  Axley  returned,"  says  Young,  "from  Louisiana 
to  the  Mississippi  territory.  lie  met  us  at  William 
Fosters.  When  he  went  to  Louisiana  he  was  a  large, 
fine-looking  man ;  but  his  flesh  had  since  fallen  off,  and 
he  looked  quite  diminutive.  His  clothes  were  worn  out, 
and  when  he  saw  his  brethren  he  could  not  talk  for 
weeping.  The  people  soon  clothed  him,  his  health 
became  restored,  his  spirits  revived,  and  he  came  to  our 
camp-ground  in  pretty  good  order."  His  fellow  laborers 
also  suffered  much.  Travis  was  prostrated  with  typhoid 
fever,  and  had  to  be  left  on  the  route  homeward  to  the 
\.»rth. 

John  M'Clure  succeeded  Young,  and  had  charge  of 
the  district  two  years,  when  (1810) 9  Miles  Harper  took 
command  of  it  for  one  year,  with  a  ceinforcement  of 
preachers, enlarging  the  little  corps  t<>  ten.  It  was  now 
that  its  most  eminent  evangelist,  and  one  of  the  most 
notable  men  of  the  American  mini-try,  William  W'inans, 
appeared  there.    He  was  horn,  in  L738,among  the  rudest 

*  But  tdfl  appointment  does  not  appear  In  the  Minims  till  1811.     All 
)  western  appointments  antedate  tn.it  publication  <>\n-  year 


±08  HISTORY    OF    THE 

population  of  Western  Pennsylvania,  "  on  the  top  of  the 
Alleghanies,  near  Braddock's  Grave." 10  He  was  left  an 
orphan  when  only  two  years  old ;  but  his  mother  was  a 
woman  of  rare  capacity  and  piety,  and  taught  him  tu 
read  in  their  home  in  the  mountain  woods,  where  he 
became  a  diligent  student  of  their  only  two  books,  the 
Bible  and  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  In  his  sixteenth  year 
he  moved,  with  his  courageous  mother,  to  Clermont 
County,  Ohio.  When  about  eighteen  years  old  he  re- 
ceived "  thirteen  and  a  half  days'  "  instruction  at  school, 
the  only  academic  education  of  his  life.  He  had  heard 
Valentine  Gook,  and  other  celebrated  itinerants,  who 
had  preached  in  his  mother's  cabin,  and  through  most  of 
his  early  life  was  addicted  to  religious  reflection.  In 
1808  he  was  licensed  to  preach,  and  sent  to  Limestone 
Circuit,  Ky.  The  next  year  he  was  thrown  into  Indi- 
ana, to  the  famous  Vincennes  Circuit,  which  included 
"  all  the  settlements  on  the  Wabash  and  White  Rivers 
from  the  Indian  line  to  the  Ohio  River."  It  was  there 
that  he  acquired  the  lifelong  friendship  of  General  Har- 
rison, (afterward  President,)  with  whom  he  was  asso- 
ciated in  Indian  perils,  and  who  has  left  an  eloquent 
estimate  of  the  services  of  Methodist  preachers  to  the 
West.  "  Confer,"  wrote  Harrison,  when  president,  to 
one  of  his  political  associates,  "  confer  with  my  old 
friend  William  Winam  ;  he  is  one  of  the  best  and  wisest 
men  known  to  me."  " 

The  conference  held  at  Shelby ville,  Ky.,  in  1810.  lis 
patched  him  to  the  Southern  Mississippi,  where  he  trav- 
eled the  Claiborne  Circuit.  Ai  that  session  Asbury 
wrote  :  "  We  have  an  open  door  set  wide  to  us  in  Mis- 

"  Letter  trom  his  friend,  Colonel  G.  F.  W.  Claiborne,  of  Mississippi, 
to  the  author. 
11  Letter  of  President  Harrison  to  Colonel  Claiborne. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         409 

gissippi  ;  tlic  preachers  there  sent  but  one  messenger  to 
conference,  they  could  not  spare  more;  they  keep  their 
ground  like  soldiers  of  Christ,  and  men  of  God."  Wi- 
nans  made  his  way  thither  through  the  Indian  and  other 
dangers  of  the  wilderness  route,  like  Gibson,  Blackman, 
Young,  and  their  associates,  and  at  once  proved  himself 
(he  right  man  for  the  peculiar  exigencies  of  the  country. 
Xone  of  his  prede  had  borne  to  it  more  gigantic 

energies  of  mind  or  body.  The  bare  catalogue  of  his 
appointments  shows  the  devotion  with  which  belabored 
through  a  long  life  for  its  religious  improvement,  per- 
sisting in  spite  of  untold  trials,  and  at  last  fearful 
struggles  with  disease:  "Claiborne  Circuit,  Wilkinson, 
Natchez  and  Claiborne,  two  years  ;  Xew  Orleans,  1813- 
1  \  :  Natchez  and  Claiborne,  Wilkinson  ;  local  five 
years,  on  account  of  ill  health;  Xatchez  Circuit,  1821; 
Mississippi  District,  four  years  ;  Washington  Station; 
Washington  District,  three  years ;  missionary  agent 
three  years;  superannuated,  1833;  Xew  Orleans  Dis- 
trict; Wilkinson,  supernumerary;  Woodville  Station; 
agent  for  New  Orleans  Church,  1837;  Xew  Orleans 
District;  Xatchez,  tour  years;  Xew  Orleans  District, 
three  years  ;  agent  for  Centenary  College.  184G  ;  Xatchez 
District,  two  years  ;  Woodville  Station  ;  agent  for  Cen- 
tenary College;  superannuated  four  years  ;  a  delegate 
to  General  Conference  nine  times,  and  a  delegate  to  the 
convention  which  organized  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  embracing  a  period  of  forty-five  years." 
u  And  during  this  long  term,"  continues  our  authority, 
"he  never  sought  inglorious  ease;  he  never  grew  weary 
of  well-doing,  he  never  became  selfish  and  worldly. 
With  persevering  and  undaunted  spirit  he  labored  on. 
The  generation  that  witnessed  his  coming,  and  most 
of  his  colleagues,  went   down  to  the  grave;    and  still 


±10  HISTORY    OF    THE 

his  enthusiasm,  and  energy,  and  masculine  intellect 
survived,  and  his  spirit  glowed  like  some  eternal 
flame  upon  the  altar  of  a  ruined  temple.  Often  have  I 
seen  him,  on  his  tours  of  circuit  duty,  scarcely  able  to 
sit  in  the  saddle;  dragging  himself  into  the  pulpit, 
preach  for  two  hours  with  surpassing  power  and  unction, 
and  then  fall  down,  faint  and  exhausted,  his  handker 
chief  stained  with  blood,  and,  for  days  thereafter,  mo- 
tionless, hovering,  as  it  were,  between  life  and  death. 
Thirty  years  ago,  and  at  intervals  since,  he  was  thought 
to  be  in  a  rapid  decline  ;  he  was  afflicted  with  hemor- 
rhages, bronchitis,  derangement  of  the  vital  organs, 
and  general  debility,  and  physicians  prohibited  the 
excitement  of  the  pulpit.  But  he  would  preach  ;  he 
felt  called  of  God  to  preach.  And  what  changes  he 
witnessed  !  In  1810  the  work  of  the  Mississippi  preach- 
ers extended  over  what  is  now  the  territory  of  Louis 
iana,  Mississippi,  and  Alabama  Conferences.  There  were 
but  ten  itinerants  in  this  great  field  of  labor,  and  the 
whole  number  of  Church  members  five  hundred  and 
nine.  Now,  in  these  conference  bounds  there  are  more 
than  three  hundred  itinerants,  and  between  eighty  and 
ninety  thousand  Church  members !  The  number  of 
preachers  has  increased  thirty-fold,  the  Church  members 
upward  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-fold!  Nor  is  this 
all.  The  Mississippi  Conference  has  contributed  largely 
to  the  Memphis,  Arkansas,  Florida,  and  the  Texan  con- 
ferences, and  somewhat  to  the  California  Conference.  It 
has  likewise  sent  forth  missionaries  to  heathen  lands ; 
contributed  nobly  to  the  dissemination  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  has  endowed  schools  and  public  journals,  seminaries 
and  colleges.  In  this  great  work  William  Winans  has 
been,  under  Providence,  mainly  instrumental."3 
12  Col.  Claiborne. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        411 

William  Winans  became  the  most  representative 
character  of  Southwestern  Methodism.  His  last  appear- 
ance in  the  North  was  at  the  memorable  General  Con- 
ference of  1844  in  New  York,  where  the  secession  of  the 
Southern  Church,  on  account  of  slavery,  was  initiated 
He  took  a  chief  part  in  that  controversy,  for  he  had 
himself  become  a  slaveholder,  under  the  plea  ofdome>tic 
necessity.  He  was  then,  next  to  Peter  Cartwright,  the 
most  unique  man  in  the  assembly ;  tall,  thin,  weather- 
worn, aud  looking  the  very  image  of  a  frontier  settler 
who  had  worn  himself  lean  by  the  labors  of  the  field 
and  the  hunts  of  the  woods.  He  wore  no  stock  or  neck- 
erchief his  shirt  collar  lay  slouchingly  about  his  neck, 
and  his  whole  attire  had  the  appearance  of  habitual 
neglect.  And  yet  this  rough  backwoodsman  was  a  doc- 
tor of  divinity,  and  a  voracious  reader  of  light  and  pol- 
ished literature,  carrying  around  his  district  saddle-bags 
crammed  with  the  works  of  the  most  popular  writers. 
In  discourse  he  was  most  intensely  earnest,  the  tight 
features  of  his  face  became  flushed  and  writhed  with  his 

'ions,  his  eye  gleamed,  and  his  voice  (strong  but 
harsh)  thrilled  with  a  stentorian  energy  and  overwhelm- 
ing  effect.  In  contrast  with  these  traits  (unrelieved  as 
they  were  by  a  -ingle  exterior  attraction)  was  a  mind  of 

Dishing  power,  comprehensive,  all  grasping,  reaching 

down  to  the  foundations  and  around  the  whole  circuit  of 

:  not  touching  subjects,  but  seizing  them  as 

with  the  claws  of  an  eagle.     He  threw  himself  on  his 

opponent   as   an    anaconda    on   its   prey,  circling    and 

-hing  it.  It  was  a  rare  curiosity  to  critical  Observers 
t«>  witne-s  this  rude,  forbidding-looking  man  exhib- 
iting in  debate  such  a  contrast  of  intellectual  and 
physical  trait-  Hia  style  was  excellent,  showing  an 
acquaintance  with  the  -tan  lard  models,  and  his  scien- 
D— 27 


412  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tific  allusions  proved  him  well  read  if  not  studied  in 
general  knowledge.  With  the  secession  of  the  South 
and  the  consequent  civil  war,  much  of  the  great  work 
he  had  done  in  Mississippi  and  Louisiana  was  undone ; 
hut  after  the  restoration  of  peace  its  germs  were  still 
found  vital  in  the  soil,  and  promise  again  to  cover  those 
extended  regions  with  evangelical  harvests. 

Of  most  of  the  colaborers  of  these  chief  itinerants  of 
the  southwest  hardly  any  records  remain.  What  inti- 
mations, however,  we  occasionally  find  respecting  them 
show  that  they  were  generally  remarkable  men.  "  The 
earliest  recollections  I  have  of  Methodism,"  writes  a 
distinguished  citizen  of  Mississippi,  "  begins  with  an 
old  brick  meeting-house  in  the  village  of  Washington, 
six  miles  east  of  Natchez.  It  was  built  mainly  by  the 
efforts  of  Randall  Gibson,  who  had  removed  to  the 
Mississippi  Territory,  then  in  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards, 
about  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  war.18  He  settled 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Natchez,  subsequently  moved  to 
Jefferson  and  Claiborne  counties,  but  during  the  last 
years  of  his  life  resided  in  Warren,  where  he  died,  at 
an  advanced  age,  leaving  a  numerous  family,  all,  I  be- 
lieve, in  connection  with  the  Church.  His  connections 
and  descendants,  consisting  of  the  Gibsons,  Fosters, 
Newmans,  Lums,  Gillespies,  Smiths,  Collins,  Harrisons, 
etc.,  are  scattered  all  over  Mississippi  and  Louisiana,  and 
have  for  half  a  century  been  the  props  of  Methodism  in 
these  two  states.  He  was  an  apostolic-looking  man, 
realizing  my  idea  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  and  was  re- 
markable for  his  singular  mildness,  his  persuasive 
powers,  good  sense,  and  perseverance.  In  that  old 
meeting-house  I  heard,  when  a  child,  the  celebrated  Lo 

13  Before  Tobias  Gibson  went  to  tbe  southwest  some  of  his  kindrea 
had  settled  about  Natchez.     Randall  Gibson  was  his  brother. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         413 

renzo  Dow,  who  preached  then,  punctually  to  the 
minute,  in  pursuance  of  an  appointment  he  had  made 
some  five  or  six  years  previous.  On  that  previous  visit 
he  had  contributed  one  hundred  dollars  to  the  building 
of  the  meeting-house.  The  first  camp-meeting  I  ever 
attended  was  in  the  Foster  settlement,  Adams  County, 
and  the  preachers  whom  I  remember  are,  Randall  Gib- 
son, Miles  Harper,  Thomas  Griffin,  and  William  Winans. 
The  latter  was  then  recently  from  Indiana ;  a  tall,  thin, 
raw-boned  and  awkward  young  man,  arrayed  in  home- 
spun pants,  with  a  long,  brown,  straight-breasted  coat, 
no  neckerchief,  and  a  coarse  pair  of  boots.  There  was 
nothing  prepossessing  about  him  but  his  small,  burn- 
ing eyes,  that  glowed  like  coals  of  fire.  His  manner  was 
slow,  deliberative,  self-possessed;  but  the  first  sentence 
he  uttered  arrested  the  attention  of  the  audience,  and 
told  that  he  was  no  ordinary  man.  Miles  Harper  and 
Thomas  Griffin  were  brothers-in-law,  having  married 
daughters  of  one  of  the  patriarchs  of  the  Church. 
They  were  both  then  young  men,  and  used  to  '  hunt  in 
couples,'  as  often  as  circuit  duties  permitted,  and  it  was 
seldom  they  failed  to  'tree  their  game.'  I  often  heard 
them  during  a  period  of  twenty  years,  and  as  camp- 
meeting  and  revival  preachers  I  have  never  met  theij 
superiors.  They  were  both  men  of  striking  physiog 
nomy.  of  rough  manners  and  sc\ere  aspect,  and  full  of 
pungent,  and  sometimes  very  bitter  satire.  They  had 
clear,  powerful,  stentorian  voices,  whose  loudest  torn »fl 
would  ring  through  the  forest  with  terrible  distinctness, 
and  whose  lowest  notes  were  perfectly  audible.  Har- 
per's voice  was  peculiarly  remarkable,  full  of  volume 
and  melody.  He  had  a  sparkling  eye;  a  smile,  when  he 
chose  to  smile,  particularly  persuasive;  and  a  fund  of 
anecdote  at  command,  which  he  brought  to  bear  with 


±14  HISTORY     OF    THE 

groat  effect.  Griffin  v -as  rather  harsh  and  sardonic. 
He  would  make  the  congregation  quail,  and  shrink,  and 
hide  their  heads  with  fear  and  shame,  and  then  Harper 
would  solace  and  comfort  them  ;  and  between  the  two, 
whenever  they  preached,  a  revival  was  sure  to  follow. 
Both  these  crood  men  began  life  with  n<>  advantages  oi 
education;  they  were  pioneer  Methodists,  Baddle-bag 
preachi  ps,  the  great  instruments  of  civilization  and 
Christianity.  In  the  wilderness,  by  the  torch  of  the 
camp-fire,  on  the  circuit  exposed  to  toil,  privation,  and 
personal  peril,  they  studied  tin-  Bible;  and  1  doubt  if 
any  ever  understood  it  better,  or  preached  it  with  more 
effect.  Harper  died,  not  many  years  since,  in  the  parish 
of  Tensas,  Louisiana,  leaving  there  several  sons,  who 
inherit  his  talents  and  virtues." 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         415 


CHAPTER  XI. 

METHODISM   IN  THE   WEST,   CONCLUDED:    1804-1820. 

Richmond  Nolley  and  his  Band  of  Pioneers  set  out  for  tbe  Southwest 
—  Lewis  Hobbs  and  Thomas  Griffin  —  Death  of  Hobbs  —  Nolley' s 
Extraordinary  Labors  —  Anecdote  —  Makes  his  Way  into  the  Interior 
of  Louisiana  —  Perishes  in  the  Woods  — Daniel  De  Tinne  in  Louisi- 
ana—  Mississipoi  Conference  Organized  —  Judge  Lane  —  Dr.  Ken- 
non  —  Joseph  Travis  —  Other  Itinerants  — Asbury  in  the  West  — 
His  Opinion  of  Camp-meetings  — His  great  Interest  for  the  West  — 
His  Career  closes  —  Great  Progress  of  Western  Metbodism  —  Ita 
Antislavery  Character  —  Ecclesiastical  Action  on  Slavery  —  Camp- 
meeting  Excesses  —  The  "  Jerks  "  — Death  of  William  Lostpeich  — 
Of  George  Askin  —  Of  Hezekiah  Harriman  —  Aboriginal  Missions 
begun  —  John  Stewart,  a  Negro,  the  first  Missionary  —  His  Singular 
History  and  Success  — Mary  Stubbs  —  Outspread  of  Missions. 

The  extraordinary  history  of  Richmond  Nolley  has 
heretofore  been  sketched  down  to  his  departure  from 
South  Carolina  for  the  southwest,  whither  he  was  sent, 
with  Lewis  Hobbs,  Drury  Powell,  and  Thomas  Griffin, 
in  1812.  They  set  out  together  on  horseback,  and 
journeyed  through  the  forests  and  Indian  tribes  three 
hundred  and  fifty  miles,  u  swimming  deep  creeks,  and 
camping  out  eleven  nights,"  ]  till  they  arrived  at  Xol- 
ley's  appointment,  the  Tombigbee  Mission.  Alas,  that 
we  have  no  journal  of  that  tour,  and  but  incoherent  ref- 
erences to  any  of  these  standard-bearers  of  the  Church  in 
the  wilderness !  I  have  heretofore  cited  a  few  allusions 
to  some  of  them.  "Hobbs,"  says  one  of  our  authorities, 
"  was  a  lovely  spirit.      He  was  called  the  '  weeping 

i  Bishop  M'Tyeire's  Sketch  of  Nolley,  in  "  Biographical  Sketches," 
p.  264. 


416  HISTORY    OF    THE 

prophet.'  He  shed  tears  over  sinners  while  he  warned 
them.  A  year  or  two  afterward  he  was  stationed  in 
New  Orleans,  where  his  last  strength  was  spent.  Their 
appointments  scattered  them  widely.  Griffin's  was  on 
the  Ouachita.  Few  have  been  so  honored  in  planting 
Methodism  in  the  southwest.  He  lived  to  a  good  old 
age,  and  his  memory  is  blessed  by  thousands.  While 
Kolley  persuaded  sinners,  and  Hobbs  wept  over  them, 
Griffin  made  them  quail.  There  was  a  clear,  metallic 
ring  in  his  nature.  By  the  camp-fire,  on  the  forest-path, 
he  studied.  One  of  the  saddle-bags  men  —  to  whom 
western  civilization  is  more  indebted  than  to  any  other 
class  of  agents  —  he  mastered  the  hardy  elements  oi 
frontier  life ;  he  was  sagacious  in  judgment,  decisive  in 
action,  strong  in  speech,  and  generous-hearted." 2 

The  "old  Minutes"  remark  (in  1815)  of  Hobbs. 
"  Truly,  it  may  be  said  that  he  counted  not  his  life 
dear  to  him  so  he  might  be  instrumental  in  advancing 
the  Redeemer's  kingdom ;  for,  although  he  was  of  a 
slender  habit,  he  cheerfully  submitted  to  the  inconven- 
iences of  a  missionary  station,  and  the  almost  incredible 
difficulties  he  had  to  surmount  in  New  Orleans,  where 
he  became  deeply  consumptive.  In  a  lingering  and 
dying  condition  he  traveled  nearly  one  thousand  miles, 
(great  part  of  which  lay  through  an  almost  uninhabited 
wilderness,)  to  his  native  country,  where  he  departed 
this  life  on  the  fourth  of  September,  1814,  in  full  assur- 
ance of  endless  life.  He  was  for  some  time  a  witness  of 
that  love  which  casteth  out  all  slavish  fear.  'I  am 
going,  but  not  a  missionary  ;  I  am  going  to  Jesus  ! '  he 
exclaimed  on  his  death-bed.  '  When  I  entered  the  con- 
nection I  gave  myself  to  the  Lord  and  the  connection. 
I  now  feel  no  sorrow  for  having  filled  the  stations  to 
3  Biographical  Sketches,  p.  266. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  417 

which  I  was  appointed,  but  a  peculiar  consolation  that 
I  have  preached  the  gospel  to  a  people  who  till  then  had 
been  Btrangers  to  it.' " 

Astonishing,  superhuman  almost,  as  seem  the  travels 
and  labors  of  many  of  the  earlier  itinerants,  none  01 
them  could  have  surpassed  the  adventurous  energy  of 
Nolley  on  his  Tombigbee  Circuit,  among  the  rudest 
settlements  and  Indian  perils.  For  two  years  he  ranged 
over  a  vast  extent  of  country,  preaching  continually, 
Stopping  for  no  obstructions  of  flood  or  weather.  When 
his  horse  could  not  go  on  he  shouldered  his  saddle-bags 
and  pressed  forward  on  foot.  lie  took  special  care  of 
the  children,  growing  up  in  a  half  savage  condition, 
over  all  the  country,  and  catechized  and  instructed  them 
with  the  utmost  diligence,  as  the  best  means  of  averting 
barbarism  from  the  settlements.  To  his  successor  on 
the  circuit  he  gave  a  list  of  them  by  name,  solemnly 
charging  him,  "  be  sure  to  look  after  these  children." 
He  labored  night  and  day  also  for  the  evangelization  ot 
the  blacks.3  When  Indian  hostilities  prevailed,  the 
settlers  crowded  into  isolated  forts  and  stockades. 
Nolley  sought  no  shelter,  but  hastened  from  post  to 
post,  instructing  and  comforting  the  alarmed  refugees. 
He  kept  ;-  the  gospel  sounding  abroad  through  all  the 
country,'"  says  our  authority.  The  people  could  not 
but  love  him.  admiring  and  wondering  at  his  courage; 
and  the  very  savages  seemed  to  hear  a  voice  saying 
unto  them,  "  Touch  not  mine  anointed,  and  do  my 
prophets  no  harm."  It  was  in  this  wild  country  that 
happened  the  fact,  often  cited  as  an  illustration  of  the 

3  Methodist  preachers  generally  in  the  South,  in  these  early  days, 
in-trueted  the  negroes  at  night,  as  the  latter  were  kept  hard  at  work 
during  the  day.     Many  of  them  perished  by  this  toil,  superadded  to 

Vhelr  dailv  preaching  tu  the  whites. 


418  HISTORY    OF    1  HE 

energy  of  the  primitive  Methodist  ministry.  "  The  in- 
formant, Thomas  Clinton,"  says  a  southern  bishop,  "  sub- 
sequently labored  in  that  region,  and,  though  a  genera- 
tion has  passed,  he  is  not  forgotten  there.  In  making 
the  rounds  of  his  work  Nolley  came  to  a  fresh  wagon- 
track.  On  the  search  for  anything  that  had  a  soul,  he 
followed  it,  and  came  upon  the  emigrant  family  just  as 
it  had  pitched  on  the  ground  of  its  future  home.  The 
man  was  unlimbering  his  team,  and  the  wife  was  busy 
around  the  fire.  '  What ! '  exclaimed  the  settler  upon 
hearing  the  salutation  of  the  visitor,  and  taking  a  glance 
at  his  unmistakable  ajjpearance,  'have  you  found  me 
already  ?  Another  Methodist  preacher !  I  left  Virginia 
to  get  out  of  reach  of  them,  went  to  a  new  settlement  in 
Georgia,  and  thought  to  have  a  long  whet,  but  they  got 
my  wife  and  daughter  into  the  Church;  then,  in  this 
late  purchase,  (Choctaw  Corner,)  I  found  a  piece  of 
good  land,  and  was  sure  I  would  have  some  peace  of 
the  preachers,  and  here  is  one  before  my  wagon  is  un- 
loaded.' Nolley  gave  him  small  comfort.  '  My  friend, 
if  you  go  to  heaven  you'll  find  Methodist  preachers 
there ;  and  if  to  hell,  I  am  afraid  you  will  find  some 
there ;  and  you  see  how  it  is  in  this  world,  so  you  had 
better  make  terms  with  us,  and  be  at  peace.' " 4 

By  1814  he  had  made  his  way  into  Louisiana  to  the 
renowned  Opelousas  and  Attakapas  Circuit,  which  lay 
far  in  the  interior  of  that  state,  half  way  of  the  distance 
from  New  Orleans  to  Texas,  and  extended  from  the 
Red  River  to  the  Gulf.  Wonderful  things  are  still  told 
of  his  labors  on  Bayou  Teche,  the  O'Tash  River  of 
Bowman's  letter,  heretofore  quoted.  He  had  great  suc- 
cess on  the  circuit,  and  no  little  persecution.  As  an 
example  of  the  treatment  he  had  to  endure  from  a  class 
*  Bishop  M'Tyeire. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         419 

of  the  rude  population,  it  is  said  that  a  sugar  planter 
drove  him  away  from  his  smoke  stack,  where  he  had 
gone  to  ask  the  privilege  of  warming  himself.  On  one 
occasion,  when  he  was  preaching,  some  lewd  fellows  of 
the  baser  sort  took  him  forcibly  from  the  stand,  and 
were  on  their  way  to  the  bayou  to  duck  him ;  but  a 
negro  woman,  armed  with  a  hoe,  effected  his  rescue; 
and,  having  assisted  the  exhausted  preacher  back  to  the 
house,  and  put  him  in  the  stand,  said  triumphantly, 
"There  now,  preach."6 

lie  appeared  iu  the  next  Conference  an  attenuated, 
worn-out  man,  yet  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  send  him 
back  to  the  same  rugged  field.  "He  went,"  says  his 
presiding  elder.  "  without  a  murmur."  He  was  accom- 
panied on  his  return  by  Griffin.  They  crossed  the  Mis- 
Bissippi  and  a  vast  swamp.  "The  difficulties  we  had 
to  encounter,'"  says  Griffin,  "  were  almost  incredible." 
Coming  to  a  place  where  they  must  separate,  after  em- 
bracing each  other,  with  mutual  benedictions  they  parted. 
It  was  in  the  latter  part  of  November,  and  a  dark,  cold, 
rainy  day.  Arriving  at  night  at  the  house  of  a  friendly 
man,  where  he  staved  till  morning,  imparting  the  com- 
forts of  religion  to  its  inmates,  Xolley  resumed  his  jour- 
ney. Across  his  path  there  lay  a  large  swamp  and  deep 
creeks,  and  not  a  single  white  man  was  to  be  found 
between  him  and  the  place  of  his  destination.  Alone 
he  traveled  on  till  evening,  when  he  found  himself  at 
an  Indian  village.  •'  Having  to  cross  a  creek  before  night, 
and  apprehending  from  the  rains  that  it  would  be  swoll- 
en, he  employed  an  Indian  to  go  with  him.  When  he 
arrived  on  a-  banks  he  found  it,  a-  he  anticipated.  ■ 
full  and  angry  flood,  rushing  tnmoltnonsly  along.  There 
W9M  no  alternative  but  to  cross,  or  remain  with  the  sav- 
8  Sprngue,  p.  441. 


*20  HISTORY    OF    THt5 

ages,  so  be  chose  the  former ;  and,  leaving  his  valise, 
saddle-bags,  and  a  parcel  of  books  with  the  Indian,  he 
urged  his  horse  into  the  stream.  No  sooner  did  his 
charger  strike  the  current  than  he  was  beaten  down  the 
flood.  The  animal  battled  courageously  with  the  stream, 
but  before  the  other  shore  was  reached,  horse  and  rider 
were  far  below  the  landing-place  of  the  ford,  and,  the 
banks  being  high,  it  was  impossible  for  the  horse  to 
gain  a  foothold,  or  make  the  ascent  of  the  other  shore. 
In  the  struggle  to  do  so  the  rider  was  thrown,  and, 
grasping  the  limb  of  a  tree  which  extended  over  the 
stream,  he  reached  the  shore.  The  horse  swam  back  to 
the  side  of  the  stream  whence  he  had  started.  The 
missionary  directed  the  Indian  to  keep  his  horse  till 
morning,  and  he  would  walk  to  the  nearest  house,  which 
was  distant  about  two  miles.  He  traveled  through  the 
woods  about  one  mile,  wet,  cold,  and  weary.  Unable 
to  proceed  any  further,  and  conscious  perhaps  that  his 
work  was  done,  and  that  he  had  at  last  fulfilled  the  errand 
of  his  Master,  he  fell  upon  his  knees,  and  commended 
his  soul  to  God.  There,  in  that  wild  wood  of  the  far 
West,  alone  with  his  God  and  the  ministering  spirits 
that  encamp  around  the  saints,  Richard  Nolley,  the 
young  missionary,  closed  his  eyes  on  earth  to  open 
them  in  heaven."  "When  he  was  found  he  was  lying 
extended  upon  the  wet  leaves,  his  left  hand  upon  his 
breast,  and  the  other  lying  by  his  side.  His  eyes  were 
closed,  and  the  gentle  spirit  left  a  smile  upon  his  pallid 
cheek  ere  it  passed  away  to  that  bright  and  beautiful 
world,  where  the  wicked  cease  to  trouble,  and  the  weary 
are  at  rest."  6 

The  day  of  his  death  was  Friday,  his  fast  day.     He 
was  probably  weaker  than  usual,  and  his  feeble  health 
8  Minutes  of  18lfi,  and  Finley's  "Autobiography,"  p.  342, 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         421 

and  fatiguing  travels,  together  with  the  unusual  cold- 
-  of  the  weather,  were  more  than  he  could  bear. 
His  knees  were  muddy,  and  there  were  prints  of  them 
in  the  ground,  showing  that  he  had  been  praying  in  this 
last  scene  of  his  mortal  life.  He  had  evidently  resigned 
himself  calmly  to  his  late,  selecting  a  place  to  die  on, 
beneath  a  clump  of  pines,  composing  his  limbs  and 
closing  his  eyes.  A  traveler  found  him  the  next  day. 
lie  was  borne  to  the  nearest  house,  and  on  Sunday  was 
buried  "  in  Catahoula  Parish,  near  the  road  leading  from 
Alexandria  to  Harrisonburg,  and  about  twenty  miles 
from  the  latter  place.  In  1856  three  members  of  the 
Conference  sought  out  the  long-neglected  and  almost 
forgotten  spot,  marked  it,  and,  kneeling  down,  conse- 
crated themselves  afresh  to  the  same  ministry  of  faith 
and  patience  and  love.  These  forty  years  the  recollec- 
tion of  Xolley  has  quickened  the  zeal  of  his  brethren. 
From  that  mound  of  earth,  in  the  fenceless  old  field,  a 
voice  has  spoken,  c  Be  faithful.'  In  the  minds  of  the 
people  the  effect  was  profound." 7 

He  was  but  thirty  years  old,  tall,  slender,  emaciated 
by  labors  and  fastings  ;  had  dark,  radiant  eyes,  and  a 
countenance  full  of  determination  and  saintliness ;  was 
never  married  ;  "  was  always  busy,  rising  at  four  o'clock 
at  all  times  and  places  ;"  was  a  man  of  no  extraordinary 
intellectual  powers,  but  of  extraordinary  courage,  self- 
denial,  and  labor,  and  yet  achieved  more  perhaps  by  his 
death  than  by  his  life,  for  his  name  is  consecrated  in  the 
heart  of  the  Church  a-  that  of  a  martyr,  and  lie  is  still 
spoken  of  ''through  the  interior  of  Louisiana"  as  "a  man 
of  the  rarest  qualities,  and  especially  as  one  of  the  most 
eminent  saints."  8 

»  Bishop  MTyi-ire. 
1  "ii<-  of  bis  successors  there,)  in  8prague,  p.  443. 

i 


422  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Many  other  itinerants,  worthy  of  commemoration, 
venerated  in  the  local  traditions  of  the  Church,  but  with 
hardly  other  record  than  the  vague  allusions' of  the  Min- 
utes, were  added  year  after  year  to  the  pioneer  hand. 
Not  a  few  were  raised  up  in  the  new  field  itself,  and  some 
we»e  even  sent  to  the  older  sections  of  the  denomina- 
tion. It  can  hardly  fail  to  surprise  northern  Methodists 
to  observe  in  the  Minutes,  attached  to  the  old  Opelou- 
sas  or  Attakapas  Circuit,  in  the  heart  of  Louisiana,  the 
name  of  Daniel  De  Vinne,  a  laborer  still  abroad  and  vig- 
orous, in  the  New  York  East  Conference,  though  nearly 
half  a  century  has  passed  since  he  followed  the  tracks 
of  Axley  and  Nolley  in  this  wild  region.  Born  in  Ire 
land  in  1793,  he  was  brought  by  his  parents  to  America 
when  not  a  year  old,  and  became  a  Methodist  in  Albany 
in  1810.  He  caught  the  spirit  of  the  itinerancy  of  that 
day,  and  longed  for  missionary  work.  In  1818  he 
joined  an  association,  formed  in  New  York  by  Joshua 
Soule,  for  the  support  of  Mark  Moore,  of  Baltimore, 
as  a  Methodist  missionary  in  New  Orleans;  a  society 
which  was  the  germ  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the 
Church,  organized  a  few  months  later.  The  same 
vear  he  went  to  Louisiana,  and  began  a  Sunday-school 
for  slaves,  which  was  soon  dispersed  by  opposition.  He 
ascended  the  river,  and  labored  on  the  Natchez  Circuit ; 
was  received  into  the  Conference  of  1819,  and  sent  to 
the  Opelousas  Circuit,  where  he  traveled  two  years, 
encountering  the  severest  hardships;  preaching  every 
day,  except  Monday,  to  the  whites,  and  every  night 
to  the  slaves,  besides  leading  classes,  and  traveling 
from  thirty  to  forty  miles  a  day  over  prairies  with- 
out roads  or  bridges ;  fording  the  bayous,  or,  when 
they  were  high,  swimming  them,  or  passing  over 
by  floats   of  dec.  yed    logs,   tied    together  by   grape- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  423 

vines.  .V  hearty  hater  of  slavery,  he.  devoted  himself 
>rith  much  zeal  to  the  religions  welfare  of  its  victims, 
and  they  were  his  most  ardent  friends.9  His  circuit 
was  a  range  of  five  hundred  and  sixty-four  miles,  from 
Alexandria,  on  Red  River,  to  the  Gulf.  His  salary  the 
first  year,  ''alter  paying  ferriage  and  horse-shoeing," 
u ae  less  than  thirteen  dollars;  the  second  year  "it  ad- 
vanced prodigiously  to  sixty-seven  dollars."  For  some 
years  he  did  faithful  service  in  various  parts  of  this 
grand  field,  and  returned  to  the  North  only  when  it 
began  to  be  amply  supplied  by  ministerial  recruits  from 
its  own  Churches,  or  adjacent  Conferences. 

In  1817  appears  in  the  Minutes,  for  the  first  time,  the 
title  of  the  "Mississippi  Conference,"  ordered  by  the 
General  Conference  of  1816.  It  was  organized  at  the 
house  of  William  Foster,  at  Pine  Ridge,  Adams  Cour.ty, 
about  seven  miles  above  Natchez,  Bishop  Roberts  pre- 
siding. A  southern  authority,  writing  in  1858,  says  : 
"The  little  company  of  pioneers  then  assembled  were  a 
feeble  band,  nine  in  number,  all  told.  They  had  to 
provide  for  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  people,  so  far  as 
Methodism  was  concerned,  from  the  Chattahoochee  to 
the  Tennessee  River,  and  from  the  Cherokee  nation  east 
to  the  Sabine  River  west.  The  little  company  all  slept 
under  the  same  roof,  and  ate  at  the  same  hospitable 
table  The  cottage  —  for  now  it  seems  quite  diminu- 
tive—  still  stands,  almost  unchanged.  It  is  worthy  of 
remark  that  fonr  <jf  that  little  band,  at  the  end  of  forty- 
one  yean,  >till  survive.  Five  have  finished  their  course 
with  joy.     Those  who  have  gone  to  their  reward  are 

•  "  Having  preached  my  last  sermon  in  St.  Mary's  court-house,  La., 

on  leaving  I  observed  a  -tir  among  the  slaves:  they  irere  making  up  a 

donation  for  me.    It  was  gracefully  presented,  and  amounted  to  fifty 

■-.    Small  as  it  was,  it  baa  never  been  forgotten.' '—Letter  to  rb» 

Author. 

I 


424  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Thomas  Griffin,  John  Menifee,  John  Lane,  Ashley  Hew- 
itt, and  Alexander  Fleming.  The  survivors  are  Peter 
James,  Elisha  Lott,  Thomas  Nixon,  and  Elijah  Gentry. 
Dr.  Winans  was  local  at  that  time,  but  present,  and 
assisting  at  the  Conference.  One  was  received  on  trial, 
Thomas  Owens,  the  first  recruit  in  the  territory.  In 
looking  over  the  region  to  be  supplied  by  this  little 
band  we  are  constrained  to  exclaim,  What  hath  God 
wrought !  They  went  out  with  their  staff,  but  now 
they  are  more  than  three  bands.  From  this  nucleus 
have  sprung  the  Alabama,  Louisiana,  two  Texas  Con- 
ferences, and  a  part  of  the  Memphis  Conference."  10 

It  had  now  two  districts,  Mississippi  and  Louisi- 
ana, nine  circuits,  twelve  preachers,  and  one  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  forty-one  members.  By  1820  it  re- 
ported three  districts,  all  with  state  titles — Mississippi, 
Louisiana,  and  Alabama — comprising  the  state  of  Louis- 
iana south  of  the  Arkansas,  all  the  Mississippi  territory 
south  of  the  Tennessee  River,  and  stretching  over  the 
present  states  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama.     It  had  yet 

10  Rev.  Dr.  Drake,  "  Biographical  Sketches,"  etc.,  p.  238.  It  should 
be  stated,  however,  that  the  Conference  was,  de  facto,  formed  as  early 
as  1813.  The  General  Conference  of  1812  authorized  its  organization 
"  whenever  it  should  seem  expedient;'1  and  as,  during  the  war,  from 
1812  to  1815,  the  preachers  could  not  pass  through  the  Indian  country 
to  the  Tennessee  Conference,  they  "assembled  on  the  first  of  Novem- 
ber, 1813,  at  the  residence  of  Newit  Trick,  a  local  preacher,  living  near 
Spring  Hill  Church,  in  Jefferson  County,  Mississippi,  and  organized 
themselves  into  a  quasi  Conference.  This  first  informal  Conference 
was  composed  of  Samuel  Sellers,  Miles  Harper,  Lewis  Hobbs,  Thomas 
Grifiin,  John  S.  Ford,  William  Winans,  Richmond  Nolley,  and  Join. 
Shrock.  William  Winans  was  elected  secretary,  and  the  business  was 
conducted  in  regular  order.  Three  other  similar  sessions  were  held 
without  a  bishop,  at  which  they  received  and  elected  preachers  to 
orders,  passed  upon  each  other's  character,  collected  their  statistics, 
planned  their  work,  assigned  the  preachers  to  their  fields  oflabor,  and 
then  sent  their  minutes  to  the  Tennessee  Conference  for  approval,  in 
order  to  their  incorporation  in  the  general  Minutes."— Rev.  J.  G 
Jones,  in  New  Orleans  Christian  Advocate. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         425 

but  eleven  ''appointments''  and  >evcnteen  preachers, 
but  rao<t  of  its  circuits  were  four  or  five  hundred  miles 
around,  and  the  itinerants  preaehed  daily.  Many 
mighty  men  were  subsequently  in  their  ranks,  and  in- 
fluential local  or  "located"  preachers  co-operated  with 
them  extensively.  Methodism  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the 
West,  was  rapidly  appropriating  the  country. 

To  the  numerous  list  of  important  itinerants,  thus  far 
noticed,  in  this  great  ultramontane  field,  scores,  not  to 
say  hundreds,  of  similar  characters  might  be  added, 
Buch  as  John  Lane,  (generally  known  as  Judge  Lane,) 
a  man  of  "noble  form  and  captivating  manners,"  and 
who,  after  years  of  ministerial  travel,  broke  down,  lo- 
1.  and,  marrying  into  the  family  of  the  Yicks,  be- 
came one  of  the  proprietors  of  Vicksburgh,  a  wealthy 
and  most  influential  citizen  and  public  functionary, 
and  always  used  his  eminent  advantages  for  the  promo- 
tion of  religion.  He  reentered  the  itinerancy  in  1822, 
and  died  in  it  1855,  exclaiming,  '-I  am  ready!  I  have 
been  living  for  this  all  my  lifetime!"11  Dr.  Robert 
L.  Kennon,  after  laboring  some  years  in  South  Caro- 
lina and  Georgia,  settled  in  Alabama,  and  became  one 
of  its  most  eminent  citizens  and  representative  Meth- 
odists, and,  re  entering  the  itinerancy,  died  in  it  while 
attending  the  Conference  of  1837,  "a  preacher,"  says 
a  southern  bishop,  "  of  very  high  order." I2  Joseph 
Travis,  after  traveling  thirty  years  in  Georgia,  South 
Carolina  and  North  Carolina,  passed  to  the  southwest, 
and  continued  his  useful  ministry  in  the  Mississippi 
Conference.  Thomas  L.  Douglass,  of  North  Carolina, 
after  preaching  about  fourteen  years  with  distinguished 
success  in  the  Virginia  Conference,  was  transferred,  in 

"  Rev.  Dr.  Drake,  Anoali  of  South.  Ifeth.,  1S0G,  p.  265. 
'.nMrew  In  Rpra/iie,  \>.  ]SSL 


426  HISTORY    OF    THE 

1809,  to  Tennessee,  where  he  was  "the  instrument  of 
the  conversion  of  hundreds  and  thousands  of  souls  ;"  '* 
a  man  of  great  dignity  and  amenity,  a  genuine  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  and  a  rare  pulpit  orator.  He  died  in 
1843.  And,  as  we  pass  again  northward,  we  meet,  in 
the  Minutes,  with  the  names  of  Joseph  Oglesby,  Charles 
Holliday,  Jonathan  Stamper,  La  Roy  Cole,  John  F. 
Wright,  John  Crane,  James  Gwin,  Alexander  Cum- 
mins, Marcus  Lindsey,  William  R.  Raper,  William  W. 
Redman,  John  A.  Waterman,  Allen  Wiley,  William 
Gunn,  and  scores  of  others,  equally  noteworthy,  who 
were  identified  with  western  Methodist  history,  more 
or  less,  during  these  years,  and  the  events  of  whose 
individual  lives  in  the  ministry  would  make  romantic 
volumes. 

These  powerful  men  were  under  the  episcopal  guid- 
ance of  Asbury  and  M'Kendree ;  leaders  worthy  to  com- 
mand such  a  host.14  Asbury  made  through  all  these 
years,  down  to  within  four  or  five  months  of  his  death, 
his  annual  visit  to  the  West ;  but,  as  now  in  all  other 
parts  of  the  country,  his  records  give  us  hardly  any 
available  facts.  He  still  endured  there  many  hardships, 
especially  in  crossing  the  mountains ;  but  the  flood  of 
emigration  had  borne  along  hundreds  of  excellent  Meth- 
odist families,  with  whom  he  had  been  familiar  in  the 
East,  and  who  hailed  his  coming  in  the  wilderness, 
often  with  tears,  sometimes  with  the  wildest  delight. 
"Thus,"  he  wrote  there  in  1805,  "our  people  are  scat- 
tered abroad;  but,  thank  the  Lord !  they  are  still  in  the 
fold,  and  on  their  way  to  glory."  In  Kentucky,  the 
same   year,   he   writes,    "  We   meet   crowds   directing 

«  Rev.  Dr.  M'Ferrin,  in  Sprague,  p.  211. 

14  Roberts  had  hardly  yet  begun  his  episcopal  travels  in  the  West,  his 
first  duties  being  in  the  East. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        427 

their  march  to  the  fertile  West.  Their  sufferings  for 
the  present  are  great ;  but  they  are  going  to  pres- 
ent abundance  and  future  wealth  for  their  children. 
In  ten  years,  I  think,  the  new  state  will  be  one  of  the 
most  flourishing  in  the  Union."  He  says,  in  this  visit, 
"  Sure  I  am  that  nothing  short  of  the  welfare  of  immortal 
souls  and  my  sense  of  duty  could  be  inducement  enough 
for  me  to  visit  the  West  so  often.  O  the  roads,  the 
hills,  the  rocks,  the  rivers,  the  want  of  water  even  to 
drink;  the  time  for  secret  prayer  hardly  to  be  stolen, 
and  the  place  scarcely  to  bp.  had  !  My  mind,  neverthe- 
less, has  been  kept  in  peace." 

He  rejoiced  at  the  introduction  of  the  camp-meeting, 
as  peculiarly  suited  to  the  wants  of  these  new  regions. 
It  gave  him  immense  congregations,  and  added  the 
people  to  the  Church  by  thousands.  In  1809  he  says 
'•  it  appears  that  the  bishops  will  hold  one  in  every  dis- 
trict ;"'  but  the  presiding  elders  held  many  more.  The 
6ame  year  there  were  seventeen  on  Miami  District,  as 
many  on  that  of  Indiana,  and  almost  every  district  had 
two  or  more.  At  one  of  them  the  bishop  wrote,  "1 
cannot  say  how  I  felt,  nor  how  near  heaven.  I  must 
take  the  field  ! "  Again  he  exclaims,  "  I  pray  God  that 
there  may  be  twenty  camp-meetings  a  week,  and  won- 
derful seasons  of  the  Lord  in  all  directions."  "More  of 
camp  meetings  ! "  he  again  writes;  "I  hear  and  see  the 
great  effects  produced  by  them."  In  his  last  western 
tour  (1815 j  he  say- :  i;  My  soul  is  blessed  with  continual 
consolation  and  peace  in  all  my  great  weakness  of  body, 
labor,  and  crowd-  of  company.  I  am  a  debtor  to  the 
whole  continent,  but  more  especially  to  the  north 
and  southwest.  It  is  there  I  usually  gain  health,  and 
generally  lose  it  in  the  Bouth  and  center.     I  have  visited 

the  Soutk  thirty  times  in  thirty-one  years.     I  wish  tc 

I)  * 


428  HISTORY    OF    THE 

visit  Mississippi,  but  am  resigned."  He  was  too  feeble 
m  health  to  go  thither,  but  would  have  gone  had  not 
the  preachers  at  the  Conference,  who  knew  the  sickli- 
ness of  the  Southern  Mississippi,  had  the  kindness  and 
self-denial  to  remonstrate  against  his  purpose.  In  Sep- 
tember of  this  year,  while  at  Cincinnati,  he  had  "  a  long 
and  earnest  talk "  with  M'Kendree  "  about  the  affairs 
of  the  Church "  and  his  own  prospects.  "  I  told 
him,"  he  adds,  "that  the  western  part  of  the  empire 
would  be  the  glory  of  America  for  the  poor  and  pious ; 
that  it  ought  to  be  marked  out  for  five  Conferences,  to 
wit :  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Holston,  Mississippi,  and  Mis- 
souri ;  in  doing  which,  as  well  as  I  was  able,  I  traced 
out  lines  and  boundaries.  I  told  him  that  having 
passed  the  first  allotted  period,  (seventy  years,)  and 
being,  as  he  knew,  out  of  health,  it  could  not  be  ex- 
pected I  could  visit  the  extremities  every  year,  sitting 
in  eight,  it  might  be  twelve,  Conferences,  and  traveling 
six  thousand  miles  in  eight  months."  He  feels  the  ap- 
proaches of  his  "  great  change,"  but  offers  to  travel  and 
work  on,  as  he  might  have  ability.  The  news  of  Coke's 
death  reminds  him  impressively  that  he  too  must  soon 
depart;  and  in  the  next  month,  while  attending  the 
Conference,  he  perceives  distinctly  that  his  work  is 
about  done,  and  resigns  himself  without  sadness  to  his 
fate.  "  I  ordained  the  deacons,"  he  writes, "  and  preached 
a  sermon,  in  which  Dr.  Coke  was  remembered.  My 
eyes  fail.  I  will  resign  the  stations  to  Bishop  M'Ken- 
dree, I  will  take  away  my  feet."  He  reviews,  but  with 
a  glance,  the  past,  and  turns  his  look  still  forward  with 
joy.  "It  is  my  fifty-fifth  year  of  ministry,  and  forty- 
fifth  year  of  labor  in  America.  My  mind  enjoys  great 
peace  and  divine  consolation.  Whether  health,  life, 
or  death,  good  is  the  will  of  the  Lord,     I  '  will  trust 


METHODIST    EP.SCOPAL    CHURCH.  429 

him ;  yea,  and  will  praise  him :  he  is  the  strength 
of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever.'  Glory !  glory ! 
glory!" 

He  journeyed  on,  still  preaching  almost  daily,  but 
tailing  last,  till  at  last,  resolved  to  die  in  the  field  of 
h:>  long  and  glorious  warfare,  he  had  to  be  carried  into 
the  pulpit,  and,  in  about  five  months  after  this  entry  in 
his  journal,  was  borne  in  the  arms  of  his  traveling  com- 
panion from  the  last  one  he  occupied,  when  "unable 
either  to  walk  or  stand,'1  and  in  seven  days  "ceased  at 
once  to  work  and  live." 

With  such  men,  led  by  such  commanders,  we  are  not 
surprised  that  western  Methodism  triumphed  all  over 
the  settled  regions  of  the  Mississippi  Valley ;  that  the 
one  Western  Conference  with  which  we  began  this 
period  had  increased  to  five  by  its  close,  each  of  them 
bearing  the  name-  of  now  mighty  states — Ohio,  Ken- 
tucky. Missouri,  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi — that  its  six 
presiding  elders1  districts  were  now  twenty-seven,  many 
of  them  individually  comprehending  the  territory  of  a 
modern  Conference;  that  its  thirty-nine  circuits  were 
now  two  hundred,  striking  the  waters  of  the  great  lakes 
on  the  north,  and  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  south, 
winding  among  the  Alleghany  fastnesses  on  the  East, 
and  threading  the  Indian  trails  to  the  farthest  log-cabins 
on  the  West  ;  and  that  it<  Beventy-two  preachers  had 
increased  to  three  hundred  and  forty,  and  its  communi- 
cants from  fifteen  thousand  three  hundred  and  fifteen 
to  ninety-eight  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty  two.14 
Ijargely  more  than  one  third  of  both  the  ministry  and 
membership  of  American  Methodism  was  now  within 

M  I  mu~t  remind  U  it  I  follow  not  the  geographj  of  the 

Church,  but  the  natural  geography  of  the  count  r, ,  in  these  as  in  all 
other 

d 


430  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Western  Methodism  had 
now  also  its  Book  Concern  at  Cincinnati,  with  Martin 
Ruter,  from  New  England,  at  its  head. 

It  was  a  powerful  "temperance"  organization,  bat- 
tling with  the  most  menacing  vice  of  that  new  country. 
It  was  also  decidedly  and  practically  an  antislavery 
society.  I  have  cited  some  of  its  antislavery  records ; 
one  of  these  documents  (the  original  manuscript  of 
which  now  lies  under  my  eye)  is  the  "  Address  from 
the  Quarterly  Meeting  Conference,  in  Livingston  Cir- 
cuit, Kentucky,  to  the  Bishops  and  Members  of  the 
Western  Conference,"  1806,  signed  by  M'Kendree  and 
James  T.  White.  It  reads  like  a  modern  "radical" 
production:  u Isaiah  saith,  'Undo  the  heavy  burdens, 
let  the  oppressed  go  free ;  break  every  yoke,  and  thou 
shalt  be  like  a  watered  garden,  a  spring  of  water  which 
faileth  not ;  yea,  thou  shalt  be  the  restorer  of  the  paths 
to  walk  in.'  This  day  our  official  brethren  voluntarily 
submitted  all  their  slaves  to  the  judgment  of  the  Con- 
ference, whether  bought  with  their  money  before  or 
after  joining  society,  given  or  born  in  their  houses,  and 
we  thereby  had  the  unspeakable  pleasure  of  decreeing 
salvation  from  slavery  in  favor  of  twenty-two  immortal 
souls."  It  proceeds  to  state  examples.  William  Code 
gave  up  thirteen  ;  Josiah  Ramsey  "offered  up  six  on  the 
altar  of  love ;"  James  T.  White  one,  "  which  was  his  all." 
Another  case  is  deferred  to  the  next  meeting,  and  it  is 
added  that  "  when  this  is  done  we  shall,  as  far  as  we 
know,  be  free  from  the  stain  of  blood  in  our  official  de- 
partment. Glory,  halleluiah  !  Praise  ye  the  Lord  !  " 
"  If  it  is  consistent  with  your  authority,  and  it  seemeth 
good  unto  you,  we  should  be  glad  of  liberty  to  exclude 
buying  and  selling  [of  slaves]  from  our  Church,  and  to 
require  of  all  slaveholders  who  may  hereafter  become 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        431 

members  of  the  Church,  to  submit  their  slaves  to  the 
judgment  of  the  Conference,"  etc. 

Similar  memorials  were  sent  from  other  quarterly 
Conferences  to  the  Western  Conference,  and  at  the 
session  of  1808,  held  at  "Liberty  Hill,"  Tenn.,  and 
comprising  about  fifty  preachers,  Burke  read  such 
petitions  from  Ilinkstone  and  Limestone  Circuits,  and 
also  "an  Address"  to  the  Annual  Conference,  "stating 
the  necessity  of  a  rule  on  the  subject  of  buying  and 
selling  slaves,  signed  by  James  Gwyn."  Collins  and 
Parker  moved  "  that  the  subject  of  slavery  be  consid- 
ered, and  some  decisive  rule  made  on  that  subject." 
The  Conference  appointed  Sale,  Lakin,  and  Burke  to 
"  draft  a  rule  on  the  subject."  Their  report  was 
adopted,  subjecting  to  trial  in  the  quarterly  Conference, 
and  to  expulsion  from  the  Church,  any  member  who 
should  buy  or  sell  a  slave,  except  in  a  clear  case  of  hu- 
manitv.  Asbury  and  M'Kendree  were  both  present, 
and  both  Bigned  these  proceedings,  M'Kendree  having 
been  elected  bishop,  a  few  months  previous,  by  the 
General  Conference. 

We  trace  this  determined  antislavery  sentiment  for 
years  in  the  West.  As  early  as  1805  Sale  wrote  from 
Lexington  Circuit,  Ky. :  "My  soul  still  abhors  the  in- 
fernal practice  of  slavery  as  much  or  more  than  ever. 
My  wife  hates  the  nefarious  practice.  In  this  we  are 
congenial  in  sentiment.  Our  possessions  are  in  Ohio 
state,  where  the  air  is  not  contaminated  with  slavery. 
I  travel  this  year  in  Kentucky.  A  few  days  past  1 
wrote  a  bill  of  emancipation  to  have  >ix  Bet  at  liberty. 
The  man  promised  me  to  have  it  recorded  as  soon  as 
possible.  I  anticipate  the  tine-  when  God  -hall  deliver 
his  Church  from  Oppression.'1  Such  may  !>••  said  t-» 
have  been  :;  tl   sentiment  of  the  western  itiner- 


432  HISTORY    OF    THE 

ants  of  these  days  of  primitive  purity  and  power.  In 
1816  the  Tennessee  Conference,  assembled  at  Bethle- 
hem, affirmed,  "  We  most  sincerely  declare  that,  in  our 
opinion,  slavery  is  a  moral  evil."  It  regretted  the  civil 
laws  which  restricted  its  ability  to  act  against  the  evil, 
"and  remove  the  curse  from  the  Church  of  God,"  and 
passed  resolutions  against  it.  At  its  preceding  session 
it  expelled  from  the  Church  Joseph  Bryant  for  buying 
a  negro.15 

The  numerical  growth  of  western  Methodism  in  these 
years  would  be  incredible  did  we  not  remember  that 
emigration  was  now  sweeping  like  an  inundation  down 
the  western  slopes  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  bearing  along 
thousands  of  eastern  Methodists  to  the  new  ultramon- 
tane circuits.  The  camp-meeting,  now  almost  every- 
where in  vogue,  kept  nearly  all  the  settled  parts  of  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi  in  religious  excitement,  and 
afforded  thousands  after  thousands  of  additions  to  the 
Churches.  But  these  great  forest  gatherings,  apparently 
supplying  a  necessity  of  the  country,  were  at  last  found 
to  be  attended  with  serious  evils.  The  prolonged  and  in- 
tense excitement  which  accompanied  them  produced  a 
singular  physical  effect,  known  through  the  West  as  the 
"Jerks."  They  became  epidemic  from  Michigan  to 
Louisiana.  The  great  "  revival,"  which,  beginning  in 
1800,  lasted  for  some  years,  and  pervaded  the  entire 
country,  was  at  last  quite  generally  characterized  by 
this  "  physical  phenomenon."  We  have  seen,  by  Fin- 
ley's  account,  the  extraordinary  scenes  of  the  "  Cane 
Ridge  camp  meeting,"  where  twenty  thousand  people 
were  gathered,  and  hundreds  smitten  to  the  ground  at 

15  See  extracts  from  the  "Journal  of  the  Western  Conference,"  by 
Bishop  Morris,  in  the  Western  Christian  Advocate,  January,  1851. 
The  original  "Address"  of  Livingston  Circuit  belongs  to  the  invalua- 
ble collections  of  Kev.  Mr.  De  Hass,  of  Washington  City,  D.  C. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         433 

one  time.  In  another  work  16  I  Lave  discussed  this 
carious  Bubject,  and  suggested  its  probable  scientific 
solution.  I  have  shown  that  the  "Jerks"  were  rapid 
contortions,  which  seemed  always  to  be  the  effect,  direct 
or  indirect,  of  religious  causes,  yet  affected  not  only 
religious, but  often  the  most  irreligious  minds.  Violent 
opposers  were  sometimes  seized  by  them ;  men  with 
imprecations  upon  their  lips  were  suddenly  smitten  with 
them.  Drunkards,  attempting  to  drown  the  effect  by 
liquors,  could  not  hold  the  bottle  to  their  lips ;  their 
convulsed  arms  would  drop  it,  or  shiver  it  against  the 
surrounding  trees.  Horsemen,  charging  in  upon  camp- 
meetings  to  disperse  them,  were  arrested  by  the  strange 
affection  at  the  very  boundaries  of  the  worshiping  cir- 
cles, sometimes  struck  from  their  saddles  as  if  by  a  flash 
of  light uing,  and  were  the  more  violently  shaken  the 
more  they  endeavored  to  resist  the  inexplicable  power. 
"If  they  would  not  strive  against  it,  but  pray  in  good 
earnest,  the  jerking  would  usually  abate,"  says  Cart- 
wright,  who  has  seen  more  than  five  hundred  persons 
11 jerking"  at  one  time  in  his  large  congregations.  The 
bonnets,  caps,  and  combs  of  women  would  fly  off,  and 
bo  violent  were  the  motions  of  their  heads  that  "their 
Long  hair  cracked  almost  as  loudly  as  a  wagoner's 
whip."  Thoughtful  men  became  alarmed  at  these  sign-, 
especially  when  they  saw  them  spreading  over  most  of 
the  new  >tates  and  territories.  Infidels  and  scorners 
could  hardly  dare  to  oppose  them,  for  they  themselves 
were  often  Beized  by  the  mysterious  affection,  while 
their  arguments   or  jests    were   but   half  uttered,   and 

History  of  the  Religions  Movement  of  the  Eighteenth  Century, 

Methodism,"  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  425,  where  I  attempt  to  explain 

'  tip  :ii<nt,"   and  give  the 

opinion  of  the  beet  Methodist  authorities  respecting  tuein.    Compare 

llbo  th<:  "r<  Bent  work,  vol.  i,  pp.  261,  882,  404. 


4:34  HISTORY    OF    THE 

drunken  revilers  were  smitten  by  it  when  alluding  to  it 
in  their  carousals  in  bar-rooms.  Many  were  the  theories 
proposed  for  its  explanation  among  Presbyterians  an-l 
Methodists,  by  whose  joint  agency  it  began.  Some 
supposed  it  to  be  a  demoniacal  effect  designed  to  dis 
parage  religion ;  others  believed  it  to  be  a  demonstration 
of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  promoted  it ;  others  pronounced 
it  a  morbid  physical  affection,  a  species  of  catalepsy,  and 
no  argument  for  or  agaiust  religion,  but  the  result  of 
extreme  excitement,  and  therefore  justifying  more  mod- 
erate measures ;  while  still  others,  unable  to  explain  it, 
believed  that,  whether  in  itself  good  or  evil,  it  was 
providentially  permitted  as  a  means  of  directing  uni- 
versally the  attention  of  the  western  population  to  the 
consideration  of  religious  subjects.  Camp-meetings 
began,  however,  to  fall  into  disfavor.  For  some  years 
there  were  few  if  any  held  in  Kentucky;  but  being  still 
deemed  a  great  convenience  for  the  dispersed  popula- 
tion, they  were  restored  with  improved  order.  State 
legislatures  enacted,  at  the  instance  of  the  Methodists, 
good  laws  for  them,  and  they  have  continued  to  be  a 
sort  of  American  "  institution  " — summer  religious  festi- 
vals, not  only  in  the  West,  but  in  all  parts  of  the 
nation. 

I  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  the  deaths  of 
some  of  the  most  prominent  itinerants  of  the  West. 
Besides  these,  the  obituary  of  the  Minutes  commemorates 
William  Lotspeich,  a  German,  born  in  Virginia,  who, 
without  extraordinary  abilities,  was  a  sound,  studiouss 
and  useful  preacher,  and,  from  1803  to  1813,  traveled  in 
Tennessee,  Kentucky,  and  Ohio,  and  died  in  the  latter 
year,  saying,  "  Tell  my  old  friends  all  is  well,  all  is  well." 
George  Askin,  an  Irishman,  began  to  travel  in  1801, 
labored  successfully  in  Western  Pennsylvania,  Western 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHULC1I.         485 

Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  Ohio,  and  expired  in  1816,  ex- 
claiming, "My  God  is  mine,  and  I  am  his.  I  have  been 
in  the  dark  mountains,  but  King  Jesus  has  given  me 
complete  victory.  Glory  be  to  God  !"  Hezekiah  Ilar- 
riman.  of  Baltimore,  joined  the  itinerancy  in  1795,  la- 
bored in  Western  Virginia,  Western  Pennsylvania,  and 
Kentucky  down  to  1^03.  when  he  was  sent  to  help 
Gibson  in  the  Natchez  country,  and  arrived  in  time  to 
attend  him  in  death  In  1805  Ilarriman  himself  was 
disabled  by  the  climate,  and  had  to  embark  from  New 
Orleans  for  Philadelphia.  He  died  on  Baltimore  Cir- 
cuit in  1807,  "  testifying  that  he  had  no  fear  of  death." 

Toward  the  end  of  this  period  western  Methodism, 
essentially  a  system  of  missionary  evangelization,  be- 
came more  distinctively  missionary,  by  turning  its  at 
tention  to  the  aborigines,  thereby  prompting  at  last  the 

_  inization  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Church, 
uiikably  providential  events  gave  it  this  new  direc 
tion.  While  .Marcus  Lindsey  was  pleaching  on  a  Sab- 
bath, in  1815,  in  Marietta,  Ohio,  a  negro  addicted  to 
drunkenness,  and  on  his  win  to  the  river  at  the  time 
to  drown  himself,  heard  the  voice  of  the  itinerant,  went 
to  the  door  of  the  Church,  and,  after  listening  to  the 
Bermon,  returned  home  with  an  awakened  conscience. 
On  the  mxt  Sunday  he  joined  the  society,  and  his 
neighbors  soon  saw  that  he  was  indeed  a  regenerated 
man.  lie  endeavored,  in  a  humble  way,  to  do  good, 
and  resolved  at  lasl  to  go  among  the  Indian  tribes  a 
witness  for  the  gospeL  He  could  read,  and  Was  a  su- 
perior singer.  With  his  Bible  and  hymn-book  he  trav- 
eled to  the  Delaware*,  on  the  Muskingum,  thence  to  a 
tribe  near  Pipetown,  on  the  Sandusky,  thence  to  another 
tribe  on  the  Upper  Sandusky.  In  some  places  be  was 
well  received,  in  others  fiercely  repelled,  and  in  peril  of 


436  HISTORY    OF    THE 

martyrdom  by  the  tomahawk;  but  he  usually  allayed 
the  violence  of  the  savages  by  his  melodious  hymns,  or 
by  falling  on  his  knees  in  prayer,  an  attitude  which 
the  Indians  revered  with  wondering  awe.  On  the 
Upper  Sandusky  he  found,  among  the  wigwams  of  the 
Wyandottes,  a  captive  negro,  Jonathan  Pointer,  who  had 
been  taken  by  them  in  Virginia  when  a  child,  and  who 
could  act  as  his  interpreter.  His  first  congregation 
consisted  only  of  an  old  Indian  man,  "  Big  Tree,"  and 
an  aged  Indian  woman,  named  Mary.17  But  he  soon 
had  the  whole  clan  under  his  influence,  and  thus  went 
forth,  from  the  first  settlement  in  the  Northwestern  Ter- 
ritory, the  first  American  Methodist  "missionary,"  John 
Stewart,  and  he  an  African,  the  founder  of  that  series  of 
aboriginal  missions  which  has  since  been  extended  over 
most  of  the  Indian  countries,  which  has  rescued,  amid 
the  general  decline  of  the  tribes,  thousands  of  immortal 
souls,  and  which  opened  the  whole  "  missionary  "  career 
of  the  denomination. 

These  extraordinary  facts  excited  no  little  interest  in 
the  western  Churches.  Assistance  was  bountifully  sent 
to  Stewart  and  his  converts;  Jane  Trimble  especially 
gave  them  her  sympathies  and  aid.  In  1819  the  Ohio 
Conference  adopted  the  mission,  and  sent  James  Mont- 
gomery as  Stewart's  colleague,  both  being  under  the 
presiding  eldership  of  Finley.  A  school  was  established 
by  the  aid  of  the  national  government.  Finley,  Elliott, 
Gilruth,  Henkle,  and  many  other  preachers,  labored 
among  the  scattered  communities  of  the  tribe.  Stewart 
was  made  a  local  preacher,  and  died  in  the  faith  in  1823. 
Converted  Wyandottes  bore,  in  1820,  the  news  of  their 
evangelization  to  a  portion,  of  their  tribe,  near  Fort 
Maiden,  in  Canada;  two  Indian  preachers  went  thither 
w  Finley's  "  Sketches,"  p.  391. 


METHODIST    EPISCOP  VL    CHUKCH.  437 

converts  were  multiplied,  and,  twelve  years  later,  there 
were  nine  aboriginal  missionary  stations  in  Upper  Can- 
ada, two  thousand  adult  Indians,  and  four  hundred 
youths  were  receiving  instruction  in  eleven  schools,  and 
the  names  of  John  Sunday,  Peter  Jones,  and  other 
native  evangelists,  became  eminent  in  the  Church  and 
in  Europe.1* 

The  labors  of  Stewart  and  his  white  colleagues  con- 
tinued to  prosper  greatly.  A  heroic  woman,  Harriet 
Stubbs,  sister-in-law  of  Judge  M'Lean,  went  to  their  aid 
as  teacher  of  Indian  girls.  "  She  possessed,''  says  Fin- 
ley,  "  more  courage  and  fortitude  than  any  one  of  her 
age  and  sex  that  I  have  been  acquainted  with.  In  a 
short  time  the  intrepid  female  missionary  was  the  idol 
of  the  whole  nation.  They  looked  upon  her  as  an 
angel-messenger  sent  from  the  spirit  land  to  teach  them 
the  way  to  heaven.  They  called  her  the  'pretty  red- 
bird,'  and  were  only  happy  in  the  light  of  her  Bmiles. 
This  most  amiable  young  lady  took  charge  of  the  Indian 
s,  and  began  to  teach  them  their  letters,  and  infuse 
into  them  her  owd  sweet  and  happy  spirit.*'  It  was  not 
Long  before  live  leading  chiefs.  Big  Tree,  Between -the- 
\  s,  Mononcue,  I  licks,  and  Peacock,  joined  the  Church. 
Big  Tree  was  the  first  convert  of  his  tribe.  Between- 
the  Logs  became  a  powerful  preacher;  but  Mononcue 
iled  him  in  the  peculiar  aboriginal  eloquence,  and 
,;  w  d  ofthunder."      All  these,  and 

hundred-  more,  after  useful  lives,  died  in  the  faith,  but 
not  till  they  >aw  Methodist  missions  established  among 
their  people  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  In 
about  three  year-  Stewart  went,  solitary  and  un- 

supported, on  his  mission,  tl.  ..       S  ciety  of 

-    -History  of  the  ' .  f  the  M.  E.  Church,"  p.  73. 

>rk,  ls*,4. 

i 


438  HISTORY    OF    THE 

the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  "  arose.  Its  necessity 
had  become  obvious.  It  threw  its  protecting  irms 
around  all  the  Indian  missions,  and  has  since  reached 
them  out,  with  the  gospel  of  peace,  to  nearly  all  the  ends 
of  the  earth. 

In  re-entering  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  period,  I  said  that  we  were  descending 
again  the  western  slope  of  the  Alleghanies  to  witness 
marvels  hardly  paralleled  in  ecclesiastical  history.  I 
have  given  but  the  outlines  of  facts  which  would  fill 
volumes,  yet  are  they  indeed  wonders,  of  character, 
labor,  travel,  suffering,  and  success.  And  their  results, 
as  witnessed  in  our  day,  justify  the  importance  here 
given  them.  The  men  who  were  chief  actors  in  these 
strange  scenes  saw  in  them  "  signs  and  wonders,"  but 
hardly  dared  to  estimate  their  full  significance;  we 
now  see  that  they  were  constructing  one  of  the  might- 
iest religious  empires  of  our  planet.  Half  the  Method- 
ism, nearly  half  the  entire  Protestantism  of  the  new 
world,  lies  now  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  Strenuous 
with  life  and  energies,  boundless  in  resources,  continu- 
ally rearing  churches,  academies,  colleges,  publishing 
houses,  and,  above  all,  noble  men  and  women,  this 
"great  West,"  for  which  Methodism  showed  such  a 
wise  prescience,  and  heroic  devotion,  seems  destined 
soon  to  be  the  fountain-head,  the  reservoir,  not  only  of 
material,  but  of  moral  resources  for  the  western  hemi- 
sphere, if  not  indeed  for  the  whole  earth* 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        439 


CHAPTER  XII. 

GENERAL  CONFERENCES,   1808-1816. 

Necessity  of  a  Delegated  Form  of  the  Conference  —  Session  of  1808  — 
"Committee  of  Fourteen"1  on  Representative  Reorganization  — 
"Presiding  Elder  Question "  — Delegation  Adopted  — The  "Re- 
strictive Rules"  —  Bishop  Coke's  Relation  to  the  Church — His  at- 
tempt to  Unite  it  with  the  Protectant  Episcopal  Church  —  Decisive 
Evidence  that  no  General  Conference  was  held  between  17S4  and 
1792;  Note  —  Coke's  Explanation  —  His  Treatment  by  the  Confer 
ence  —  M'Kendree  elected  Bishop  —  Other  Proceedings  —  The  Oc- 
casion in  the  Baltimore  Churches  —  M'Kendree's  Remarkable  Ser- 
mon—  Session  of  1812,  firsi  Delegated  General  Conference  —  Lead- 
ing Members  —  M'Kendree's  "  Address"  —  Proceedings  —  Slavery — 
Local  Elders  —  Temperance  —  Elective  Presiding  Eldership  —  Ses- 
sion of  1^1'j  —  Canadian  Territorial  Question  —  George  and  Roberts 
elected  Bishops  —  "Course  of  Study"  —  Other  Proceedings  — 
Slavery. 

I  have  traced  the  legislative  development  of  the  Church, 
by  the  General  Conference,  down  to  the  end  of  the  ses- 
sioo  of  1804.  The  next  meeting  of  that  body  was  in 
Baltimore.  May  6,  1808.  It  had  been  anticipated  with 
n<>  little  interest,  as  the  change  of  its  organization,  to  a 
delegated  assembly,  was  generally  expected.  For  years 
Asbury  and  other  leading  men  had  advocated  this  modi- 
fication ;  it  had  now  become  an  obvious  necessity  by 
the  magnitude  of  the  body,  and  the  preponderance  of 
the  central  Conferences  in  its  proceedings.  At  the 
present  session  Virginia,  Baltimore,  Philadelphia,  and 
New  York,  had  om-  hundred  members  oat  of  the 
whole  number  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  re 
corded  at  the  opening  of  the  Conference;  Philadelphia 
and  Baltimore  Conferences  hid  rixty-three,  half  of  tin- 


4-40  HISTORY    OF    THE 

whole,  lacking  three.1  A  memorial,  asking  for  a  recon- 
struction of  the  Conference  as  a  delegated  body,  had 
been  addressed,  early  in  180V,  to  the  annual  Conferences, 
by  the  New  York  Conference.  It  was  approved  by  the 
New  England,  Ohio,  and  South  Carolina  Conference? ; 
but,  as  it  proposed,  for  the  purpose,  an  extra  session  in 
the  same  year,  it  was  defeated  in  the  Virginia  Confer- 
ence, chiefly  by  the  influence  of  Jesse  Lee,  who,  never- 
theless, was  decidedly  in  favor  of  a  representative  organ- 
ization of  the  body,  and  successfully  advocated  the  meas- 
ure in  the  next  Virginia  session,2  held  three  months  before 
that  of  the  General  Conference.  A  committee  of  two 
members  from  each  annual  Conference,  making  fourteen 
in  all,  was  now  appointed  to  report  on  the  subject. 
They  were  Cooper  and  Wilson,  of  New  York  Confer- 
ence ;  Pickering  and  Soule,  of  New  England ;  M'Ken- 
dree  and  Burke,  of  the  Western ;  Phoebus  and  Randle, 
of  South  Carolina ;  Bruce  and  Lee,  of  Virginia ;  Roszell 
and  Reed,  of  Baltimore  ;  M'Claskey  and  Ware,  of  Phil- 
adelphia. On  the  sixteenth  of  May  they  reported  a 
form  of  law,  a  species  of  constitution  for  a  representa- 
tive General  Conference.  It  was  opposed,  and  post- 
poned, that  the  question  of  the  election  of  presiding 
elders,  by  the  annual  Conferences,  might  first  be  decided. 
Cooper  and  Wells  moved  an  elective  presiding  elder- 
ship. It  was  decided  in  the  negative  by  ballot  (ayes 
52,  nays  73)  on  the  eighteenth  of  May,  and  the  same 
day  the  report  of  the  "  Committee  of  Fourteen  "  was 
resumed,  and  rejected  by  a  majority  of  seven  out  of  £ 
hundred  and  twenty  one  voting.  Asbuiy  and  other 
chief  advocates  of  the  measure  were  profoundly  afflicted 
by  this   result.     The  New  England,  and   most  of  thf 

1  General  Conference  Journals,  vol.  i,  p.  71 

2  Dr.  Lee's  Life  of  Lee,  p.  429. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         441 

*  extern  members,  who  had  been  sent  by  election,  as 
representatives  of  their  distant  Conferences,  which  could 
not  generally  attend,  retired,  and  threatened  to  return 
home,1  Consultations  ensued,  and,  four  days  later,  the 
question  was  again  resumed  by  motions  of  George,  Ros- 
/'.cll,  Soule,  Pickering,  and  Lee.  On  the  twenty-fourth 
the  report  of  the  committee  was  substantially  adopted, 
"  almost  unanimously."  4  It  provided  that  one  repre- 
sentative for  every  five  members  of  the  annual  Confer- 
ences shall  be  sent  to  the  General  Conference ;  that  the 
latter  shall  have  "full  powers"  to  make  "rules  and  reg- 
ulations "  for  the  Church  under  certain  "  restrictions,"  to 
wit,  that  it  shall  not  change  the  Articles  of  Religion;  nor 
allow  more  than  one  delegate  for  every  five,  nor  less 
than  one  for  every  seven  members  of  an  annual  Confer- 
ence ;  nor  do  away  episcopacy  or  the  itinerancy  of  the 
episcopate;  nor  change  the  "General  Rules;"  nor  abolish 
the  right  of  trial  and  appeal  of  accused  preachers  and 
member*:;  nor  "appropriate  the  produce  of  the  Book 
Concern  or  Chartered  Fund,"  except  for  the  benefit  of 
ministers  and  their  families.  These  restrictions  could, 
however,  be  suspended  by  the  joint  recommendation  of 
all  the  annual  Conferences,  together  with  a  majority  of 
two  thirds  of  the  General  Conference.  Such  are  what 
are  usually  called  the  Restrictive  Rules  of  the  Method- 
ic Episcopal  Church.  With  the  "Articles  of  Religion," 
and  the  "General  Rules,"  they  compose  the  organic  or 
constitutional  law  of  tbe  denomination.  They  are  at- 
tributed chiefly  to  Joshua  Soule;  a  sub  committee  of  the 
fourteen,  consisting  of  Soule,  Cooper,  and  Bruce,  having 
prepared  them.  In  their  form,  at  this  time,  they  leave 
open  to  change,  the  fundamental  interests  of  the  Church, 

•  Elliott's  Life  of  Bishop  Roto  rte,  p.  159. 

*  Baogs'e  ••  History,"  vol.  ii,  p.  231. 


4:42  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

even  its  theology  and  terms  of  memoership,  without 
representation  of  the  laity;  but,  in  1832,  the  proviso 
giving  this  power,  was  modified,  making  ihe  Articles 
of  Religion  unalterable,  and  requiring  a  vote  of  three 
fourths  of  the  members  of  the  annual,  and  two  thirds 
of  the  General,  Conferences  to  effect  any  of  the  othei 
specified  changes.  The  ratio  of  representation  has  been 
repeatedly  altered. 

The  relation  of  Bishop  Coke  to  the  American  Church 
was  much  debated  at  this  session.  He  was  still  absent 
in  Europe.  The  Conference  addressed  him  a  cordial 
letter,  consenting  to  his  remaining  abroad,  at  the  request 
of  the  Wesleyan  Conference,  till  recalled  by  the  Ameri- 
can Church,  and  retained  his  name  among  those  of  the 
bishops,  with  a  proviso  that  he  is  "  not  to  exercise  his 
episcopal  office  among  us  "  till  recalled.  The  debate  on. 
his  case  was  complicated  with  the  report  of  his  attempt, 
in  1791,  to  negotiate,  with  Bishop  White,  a  union  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  and  Protestant  Episcopal  Churches. 
I  have  heretofore  alluded  to  this  fact,  so  often  and  falla- 
ciously cited,  by  opponents  of  the  Church,  as  proof  that 
Coke  distrusted  his  episcopal  consecration  by  Wesley.5 
The  threatened  disturbances  of  the  O'Kelly  controversy, 
which  soon  after  broke  out,  together  with  the  treatment 
which  both  Wesley  and  Coke  had  received  from  the 
American  Conferences,  alarmed  the  doctor.  He  rashly 
but  conscientiously  supposed  that  a  union  with  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  might  give  stability  to 
Methodism.  His  correspondence  with  White  was  strictly 
personal  and  confidential,  and  was  designed  solely  to 
ascertain  the  possibility  of  the  union,  before  he  should 
consult  Asbury  and  the  other  American  leaders  respecting 
it.  Before  lie  left  the  country,  after  writing  to  White, 
6  See  vol.  iii,  p  41. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         443 

he  did  submit  the  question  to  Asbury,  at  New  Castle, 
Del.,  where  he  embarked.  Asbury  "gave  no  decisive 
opinion  on  the  subject."  6  The  correspondence  was  kept 
coutidential  by  White  till  1804,  when  he  revealed  it  to 
Simon  Wilmer,  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  and 
John  ATClaskey,  of  the  Philadelphia  Conference.  He, 
still  later,  gave  a  copy  of  Coke's  letter  to  "Rev.  Dr. 
Kemp,  of  Maryland,  and  it  was  at  last  published  in  a 
controversy  of  the  diocese."  Of  course  it  raised  a  storm 
of  prejudice  against  Coke;  but  his  explanatory  letter  to 
the  present  Conference  allayed  all  hostility.  "  I  had 
provided,"  he  says,  "in  the  fullest  manner,  in  my  indis- 
pensably necessary  conditions,  for  the  security,  and,  I 
may  say,  for  the  independence  of  our  discipline  and 
places  of  worship ;  bu~  x  thought  (perhaps  erroneously, 
and  I  believe  so  now)  that  our  field  of  action  would  have 
been  exceedingly  enlarged  by  that  junction.  If  it  be 
granted  that  my  plan  of  union  with  the  old  Episcopal 
Church  was  desirable,  (which  now:  I  think,  was  not  so, 

8  Coke's  Letter  to  the  General  Conference  of  1803,  in  Bangs,  vol.  ii, 
p.  207.  There  is  an  important  passage  in  this  letter  which  further  de- 
cides the  question,  (treated  in  a  long  note  on  page  37  of  my  third  vol- 
ume,) whether  there  was  a  session  of  the  General  Conference  between 
1784  and  1792.  Coke  says,  January  29,  1>>03,  "  There  are  few  of  you 
who  can  possibly  recollect  anything  of  what  I  ain  next  going  to  add. 
Many  of  you  were  then  only  little  children.  We  had  at  that  time 
[1791]  no  regular  General  Conference.  One  only  had  been  held  in  the 
year  17^1.  I  had  indeed,  with  great  labor  and  fatigue,  a  few  mouths 
before  I  wrote  this  letter  to  Bishop  White,  prevailed  on  James  O'Kelly 
to  submit  to  the  decision  of  a  General  Conference.  This  Conference 
was  to  be  held  in  about  a  year  and  a  half  after  my  departure  from  the 
States.  And  at  this  Conference,  held,  I  think,  the  latter  end  of  1792, 
I  proposed  and  obtained  that  great  blessing  to  the  American  connec- 
tion, a  permanency  for  General  Conferences,  which  were  to  be  held  at 
stated  times.  Previously  to  the  holding  of  this  Conference  except  the 
general  oue  held  in  17^4j  there  were  only  small  district  meetings,  ex- 
cepting the  council  which  was  beld  either  in 
1  T'J  1  or  17'.'  J."  This,  even  without  the  decisive  citation  I  make  from 
Asbury  in  my  furmer  note,                    '  the  question. 

'  D— 29  * 


444  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

though  I  most  sincerely  believed  it  to  be  so  at  that  time,) 
then  if  the  plan  could  not  have  been  accomplished  with- 
out a  repetition  of  the  imposition  of  hands  for  the  same 
office,  I  did  believe,  and  do  now  believe,  and  hav  )  no 
doubt  that  the  repetition  of  the  imposition  of  Lands 
would  have  been  perfectly  justifiable  for  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  field  of  action,  etc.,  and  would  not,  by  any 
means,  have  invalidated  the  former  consecration  or  im- 
position of  hands.  Therefore  I  have  no  doubt  but  my 
consecration  of  Bishop  Asbury  was  perfectly  valid,  and 
would  have  been  so  even  if  he  had  been  reconsecrated. 
I  never  did  apply  to  the  general  convention  or  any  other 
convention  for  reconsecration.  I  never  intended  that 
either  Bishop  Asbury  or  myself  should  give  up  our  epis 
copal  office  if  the  junction  were  to  take  place;  but  I 
should  have  had  no  scruple  then,  nor  should  I  now,  if 
the  junction  v:ere  desirable,  to  have  submitted  to,  or  to 
submit  to  a  reimposition  of  hands  in  order  to  accomplish 
a  great  object ;  but  I  do  say  again,  I  do  not  now  believe 
such  a  junction  desirable."  7 

Both  the  characteristic  rashness  and  the  admirable 
catholicity  of  Coke  are  manifest  in  this  affair,  and  the 
whole  correspondence  does  more  credit  to  his  heart 
than  discredit  to  his  head.  The  Conference,  in  its  offi- 
cial letter  to  him,  after  thoroughly  investigating  the 
case,  properly  said,  "You  may  be  assured  that  we 
feel  an  affectionate  regard  for  you ;  that  we  gratefully 
remember  your  repeated  labors  of  love  toward  us ;  and 
that  we  sensibly  feel  our  obligations  for  the  services 
you  have  rendered  us.  We  hope  that  no  circumstance 
will  ever  alienate  our  Christian  affection  from  you,  or 
yours  from  us." 

The  ecclesiastical  system  of  the  Church  had  been  so 
7  The  italics  are  his  own, 


M  E  THODIS  T    EPISCOPAL    C  II  L*  R  C  H.         445 

thoroughly  developed  and  established,  by  this  time,  that 
the  farther  proceedings  of  the  Conference  present  little 
more  than  the  enactment  of  administrative  details.  A 
hearty  letter  from  the  British  Conference  said  that  "re- 
specting our  union,  dear  brethren,  we  think  of  no  sepa- 
ration from  you,  except  the  great  Atlantic."  The  Amer- 
ican Conference  responded,  ';  Respecting  our  union, 
brethren,  we  can  say  with  you,  we  know  no  separation 
save  the  Atlantic."  They  devoutly  congratulate  one 
another  on  their  late  success  and  greater  prospects. 
By  the  death  of  Whatcoat  the  aged  Asbury  was  left 
alone  in  the  episcopate.  M'Claskey  and  Cooper  moved 
that  it  should  be  reinforced  by  the  consecration  of  seven 
men,  proposing  a  modified  diocesan  episcopacy,  there 
being  seven  Conferences  at  this  time.8  Ostrander  and 
Sonle  proposed  two,  Roszell  and  Pitts  one.  On  the  12th 
of  May  M'Kendree  was  elected  to  the  office  by  ninety- 
fa' ve  votes  out  of  a  hundred  and  twenty-eight,  and  con- 
secrated in  Light-street  Church  on  the  17th.  Ezekiel 
_>er  and  Jesse  Lee  were  the  other  candidates.  Eze- 
kiel Cooper  resigned  the  Book  Agency,  and  John  Wil- 
son and  Daniel  Hitt  were  elected  to  that  office.  It  was 
enacted  that,  in  order  to  ordination  to  deacon's  orders, 
local  preacher-  must  be  recommended  by  a  quarterly 
meeting,  and  be  approved,  alter  examination,  by  the 
annual  Conference.  A  change  was  made  in  the  rule  on 
the  trial  of  Church  members,  tor  debt  and  other  dispute-, 
allowing  a  legal  process  in  case-  judged  to  require  it. 
A  thousand  dollar-  were  appropriated  from  the  Book 
<  imcern  to  the  printing  of  religious  t  be  given 

away;  Asbury  and  h\<  traveling  companion  usually 
scattered  them  over  their  routes.  The  question  of 
slavery,  which  had  never  failed  to  come  up  in  the 


4:4-6  HISTORY    OF    THE 

sions  of  the  General  Conference,  was  again  brought  up 
by  Roszell.  M'Claskey  and  Budd  were  defeated  in  a 
motion  to  strike  out  "the  whole  section  in  the  Disci- 
pline on  the  subject."  Roszell  and  Ware  carried  a  reso- 
lution to  "retain  the  first  two  paragraphs  of  the  section," 
and  to  authorize  the  annual  Conferences  to  "  form  theii 
own  regulations  relative  to  buying  and  selling  slaves." 
It  was  ordered  that  "  a  thousand  forms  of  Discipline  be 
prepared  for  South  Carolina,  with  the  section  and  rule 
on  slavery  left  out."  By  motion  of  Lee  and  Ware,  the 
word  "  salary  "  was  struck  out  of  the  Discipline,  and  the 
word  "  allowance  "  inserted  in  its  place. 

The  Conference  adjourned  on  the  26th  of  May,  having 
sat  twenty  days.  Boehm,  who  was  present,  gives  us  a 
few  glimpses  of  the  exterior  incidents  of  the  session. 
He  says  there  was  much  eloquent  and  powerful  preach- 
ing. "  On  Sunday,  the  8th,  George  Pickering  preached 
in  the  market-house,  and  three  preachers  exhorted  after 
him.  There  was  a  mighty  shaking  among  the  people. 
This  was  early  in  the  morning.  At  half  past  ten  I 
heard  William  M'Kendree  from  'Is  there  no  balm  in 
Gilead,'  etc.  This  was  the  eloquent  sermon  that  made 
him  bishop.  Dr.  Bangs  gives  a  graphic  description  of 
it.  Slow  in  his  commencement,  he  rose  with  his  sub- 
ject, till  his  audience  were  melted  like  wax  before  the 
fire.  In  the  afternoon  Stith  Mead,  from  Virginia, 
preached  at  Old  town.  Bishop  Asbury  preached,  in 
Eutaw-street,  the  opening  sermon  of  the  new  chapel, 
from  2  Cor.  iii,  12,  'Seeing  then  we  have  such  hope, 
we  use  great  plainness  of  speech.'  The  crowd  was 
immense  and  the  sermon  characteristic.  There  was 
not  only  preaching  on  Sunday,  but  three  times  every 
day  in  the  Light-street  Church,  and  every  evening  in 
the  four  other  churches,  namely :  The  Point,  Oldtown, 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  447 

African,  and  Eutaw.  Several  souls  were  converted 
during  the  week  Sunday,  the  15th,  was  a  great  day. 
William  M'Kendree,  bishop  elect,  preached  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  Marsh  market.  My  record  says:  'This 
was  an  awful  time  of  the  power  and  presence  of  the 
Lord.'  At  ten  o'clock  Asbnry  preached  in  Light-street 
Chun  h,  and  the  sheep  were  gloriously  fed  by  the  under 
shepherd  ;  in  the  afternoon  Jacob  Gruber  in  German, 
at  three  o'clock,  in  Otterbein's  church ;  M'Kendree 
again  at  five  in  the  Eutaw;  and  John  Jl'Claskey  at 
Light-street  in  the  evening.  On  "Wednesday,  the  18th, 
William  M'Kendree  was  consecrated  to  the  office  and 
work  of  a  bishop.  Asbury  preached  from  1  Tim.  iv,  16, 
'Take  heed  unto  thyself,'  etc.  Freeborn  Garrettson, 
Philip  Bruce,  Jesse  Lee,  and  Thomas  Ware  assisted 
Bishop  Asbury  in  the  ordination  service,  they  being  the 
oldest  ministers  present.  Sunday,  the  22d,  was  a  great 
day  in  Baltimore.  George  Pickering  preached  in  the 
new  church  at  six  in  the  morning ;  at  ten,  Samuel 
Coates,  in  Oldtown  ;  at  three,  Jacob  Gruber,  at  the 
African  Church ;  at  five,  Ezekiel  Cooper  in  Eutaw- 
street  Church.  .lt->e  Lee  preached  in  the  evening  at 
Light-street,  from  John  v,  40.  Thus  ended  this  day 
of  privileges,  the  last  Sabbath  of  the  General  Confer- 
ence in  Baltimore  in  1808.  I  have  given  a  statement 
of  the  preaching,  for  this  has  not  been  done.  Others 
have  dwelt  upon  the  doings  of  the  General  Conference 
during  the  week,  and  have  -aid  but  little  of  what  was 
done  on  Sunday.  But  to  hear  these  giants  in  the 
pulpit,  these  master  workmen,  was  a  privilege  that 
afforded  me  consolation  in  after  year-.  It  will  In- 
seen  they  preached  early  in  the  morning,  and  had  five 
service-  a  day.     There  \  it  deal   more  preach- 

ing  during   the   General    C  inference.     I    have   simply 


448  HISTORY    OF    THE 

named  the  men  I  heard.  The  business  of  the  Con- 
ference was  done  in  great  harmony.  There  were 
masterly  debates  on  the  great  questions  of  Church 
polity  that  came  before  them,  but  all  was  done  in 
love." 

Nathan  Bangs  was  at  this  Conference  as  a  spectatoi. 
He  had  been  laboring  on  Canada  circuits,  and  had  hardly 
heard  of  M'Kendree,  whose  fame,  nevertheless,  now 
filled  all  the  West.  Bangs  went,  on  Sunday,  to  Light- 
street  Church,  the  center  of  interest,  the  cathedral  of 
the  occasion,  and  of  the  denomination.  He  says,  "  It 
was  filled  to  overflowing.  The  second  gallery,  at  one 
end  of  the  chapel,  was  crowded  with  colored  people.  I 
saw  the  preacher  of  the  morning  enter  the  pulpit,  sun- 
burnt, and  dressed  in  very  ordinary  clothes,  with  a  red 
flannel  shirt,  which  showed  a  large  space  between  his 
vest  and  small  clothes.  He  appeared  more  like  a  poor 
backwoodsman  than  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  I  felt 
mortified  that  such  a  looking  man  should  have  been 
appointed  to  preach  on  such  an  imposing  occasion.  In 
his  prayer  he  seemed  to  lack  words,  and  even  stam- 
mered. I  became  uneasy  for  the  honor  of  the  Confer- 
ence and  the  Church.  He  gave  out  his  text:  'For  the 
hurt  of  the  daughter  of  my  people  am  I  hurt ;  I  am 
black ;  astonishment  hath  taken  hold  on  me.  Is  there 
no  balm  in  Gilead  ?  is  there  no  physician  there  ?  why 
then  is  not  the  health  of  the  daughter  of  my  people 
recovered  ? '  As  he  advanced  in  his  discourse  a  mys 
terious  magnetism  seemed  to  emanate  from  him  to  all 
parts  of  the  house.  He  was  absorbed  in  the  interest  of 
his  subject ;  his  voice  rose  gradually  till  it  sounded  like 
a  trumpet ;  at  a  climactic  passage  the  effect  was  over- 
whelming. It  thrilled  through  the  assembly  like  an 
electric   shock ;    the  house   rang   with   irrepressible   re- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         449 

sponges;  many  hearers  fell  prostrate  to  the  flour.  An 
athletic  man,  sitting  by  my  side,  fell  as  if  shot  by  a 

cannon  ball.  I  felt  my  own  heart  melting,  and  feared 
that  I  should  also  fall  from  my  seat.  Such  an  astonish- 
iug  effect,  so  sudden  and  overpowering,  I  seldom  or 
never  saw  before." 

Bangs  refers,  again,  in  his  History  of  the  Church,  to 
this  sermon,  and  says  he  saw  "a  halo  of  glory  around  the 
preachers  head."  M'Kendree's  general  recognition  as 
leader  of  western  Methodism,  together  with  his  evident 
fitness  for  the  episcopal  office,  doubtless  led  to  his  nom- 
ination; bnt  this  remarkable  discourse  placed  his  elec- 
tion beyond  doubt.  "  That  sermon,"  said  Asbury, 
"  will  deeide  his  election."  Asbury  had  formerly 
l'av<»red  Lee's  appointment  to  the  episcopate ;  M'Ken- 
dree  had  become  endeared  to  him  in  the  conflicts  of 
the  West,  and  he  now  saw  reason  to  prefer  him  even 
to  Lee.  The  Chnrch  had  become  rich  in  great  and 
eligible  men. 

On  May  1,  1812,  the  first  delegated  General  Confer- 
ence assemVed  in  the  "  old  John-street  Church,"  New 
York.  Garrettson,  Ostrander,  Bangs,  Clark,  Merwin, 
and  eight  other  members  of  Xew  York  Conference  were 
there;  Pickering,  Redding,  Soule,  and  six  others  from 
Xew  England  ;  Owen,  Batchelor,  and  four  more  from 
( renesee  ;  Blackmail,  Lakiu,  Quinn,  Sale,  Collins,  Parker, 
Axley,  and  six  more  from  the  West  :  Myers,  Pierce, 
Kenneday,  Dunwody,  and  five  others  from  South  Caro- 
lina; Lee,  Bruce,  Douglas,  Early,  and  live  more  from 
Virginia;  Reed,  Wells.  Snethen,  .  Shinn,  Rob- 

erts, Ryland,  and  eight  others  from  Baltimore  ;  <  ooper, 
Bi'Claskey,  Sargent,  Ware,  Roszell,  and  nine  others 
from  Philadelphia ;  the  whole  number  being  ninety 
N      provision  had  been  made  in  the  law  of  the  Church 


450  HISTORY    OP    THE 

for  substitutes,  to  take  the  place  of  members  who 
should  fail  to  be  present  by  death  or  other  cause. 
But  New  England  had  the  forethought  to  provide  three 
for  such  an  exigency.  The  "  Conference  took  into 
consideration  the  propriety  of  the  principle,"  says  the 
journal,  and  approved  it,  an 6!  the  example  has  ever 
since  prevailed. 

M'Kendree  submitted  a  written  address  or  message 
to  the  Conference,  the  first  example  of  the  kind.  "  Upon 
examination,"  he  said,  "  you  will  find  the  work  of  the 
Lord  is  prospering  in  our  hands.  Our  important  charge 
has  greatly  increased  since  the  last  General  Conference; 
we  have  had  an  increase  of  nearly  forty  thousand  mem- 
bers. At  present  we  have  about  one  hundred  and 
ninety  thousand  members,  upward  of  two  thousand 
local,  and  about  seven  hundred  traveling  preachers  in 
our  connection,  and  these  widely  scattered  over  seven- 
teen states,  besides  the  Canadas  and  several  of  the  tei 
ritorial  settlements." 

He  specified  many  interests  of  the  denomination  which 
needed  the  revision  of  the  Conference.  His  suggestions 
were  referred  to  committees,  after  which  Asbury  ad- 
dressed the  assembly  extemporaneously  on  the  history 
of  the  Church,  its  appropriate  policy  for  the  future, 
and  particularly  the  expediency  of  increasing  the  num- 
ber of  annual  Conferences.  The  legality  of  the  organ- 
ization of  the  Genesee  Conference,  two  years  before, 
had  been  questioned ;  the  Conference  now  sanctioned 
that  measure.  It  also  divided  the  Western  Conference 
into  two,  the  Ohio  and  the  Tennessee,  and  authorized 
the  bishops  to  form  another,  "down  the  Mississippi,"  if 
they  should  judge  it  expedient.  After  protracted  de- 
bate the  ordination  of  local  preachers,  as  elders,  was 
voted:  but  only  for  localities  where  the  "official  serv- 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         451 

ices''  of  local  ciders  might  "be  necessary,  and  "  provided 
that  no  slaveholder  shall  be  eligible  to  the  office  of 
local  elder  in  any  state  or  territory  where  the  civil 
laws  will  admit  emancipation,  and  suffer  the  liberated 
slave  to  enjoy  his  freedom."  Tt  was  ordered  that  the 
Magazine,  which  had  been  published  in  1789  and  1790, 
should  be  revived,  but  it  was  not,  till  six  years  later. 
The  preceding  session  had  disapproved  of  the  manu- 
script of  Lee's  "  History  of  the  Methodists,"  which  had 
been  submitted  to  the  examination  of  a  committee ;  the 
Conference  now  voted  that  the  annual  Conferences 
should  collect,  by  committees,  historical  materials,  and 
the  Xew  York  Conference  employ  a  historian  to  prepare 
them  for  publication  ;  a  proceeding  which  seems  to  have 
been  soon  forgotten.  It  was  ordered  that  stewards 
should  no  longer  be  appointed  by  the  preacher  in 
charge,  but  be  nominated  by  him,  and  appointed  by 
the  quarterly  Conference.  Annual  Conferences  were 
allowed  to  provide  funds  for  the  relief  of  their  own 
preachers,  and  "  for  mission  purposes."  Axley  stood 
up  persistently  for  his  "temperance"  reform,  moving 
repeatedly,  against  motions  to  lay  on  the  table,  that 
"no  stationed  or  local  preacher  shall  retail  spirituous 
or  malt  liquors  without  forfeiting  his  ministerial  charac- 
ter among  us."  At  the  third  effort  he  was  defeated. 
David  Young  moved  that  "the  Conference  inquire  into 
the  nature  and  moral  tendency  of  slavery."  The  motion 
was  laid  on  the  table,  but  the  question  was  irrepressi- 
ble. The  Conference  sent  forth  a  long  and  fervent 
pa-toral    address,    in    which,    among    many    important 

counsels,  it  paid  some  respect  to  Axley's  defeated 
motions.  "It  is  with  regret,"  it  Bays,  "that  we  have 
seen  the  u>e  of  ardent  Bpirits,  dram-drinking,  etc.,  so 
common  anion--  the  Methodists.     We  have  endeavored 


452  HISTORY    01     THE 

to  suppress  the  practice  by  our  example,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary that  we  add  precept  to  example ;  and  we  really 
think  it  not  consistent  with  the  character  of  a  Chris- 
tian to  be  immersed  in  the  practice  of  distilling  or 
retailing  an  article  so  destructive  to  the  morals  of 
society,  and  we  do  most  earnestly  recommend  the 
annual  Conferences  and  our  people  to  join  with  us 
in  making  a  firm  and  constant  stand  against  an 
evil  which  has  ruined  thousands  both  in  time  and 
eternity." 

Two  clays  were  spent  in  a  great  debate  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  election  of  presiding  elders  by  the  annual 
Conferences.  Lee,  Shinn,  and  Snethen  were  the  leaders 
of  the  affirmative,  and  many  of  the  ablest  delegates 
shared  their  opinions ;  but  they  were  defeated,  the 
bishops  being  known  as  jn-ofouudly  opposed  to  it.  At 
every  session  of  the  General  Conference,  since  1784, 
down  to  1828,  (with  the  possible  exception  of  that  of 
1804,)  this  question  obtruded  itself,9  arraying  the  chiet 
men  of  the  ministry  against  each  other  in  formidable 
parties.  In  the  session  of  1812  the  majority  against  the 
change  was  but  three  ;  the  delegates  of  Philadelphia, 
~New  York,  and  Genesee  were  pledged  to  it ;  the  south- 
ern and  western  members  were  mostly  opposed  to  it. 
Lee,  Cooper,  Garrettson,  Ware,  Phcebus,  and  Hunt  were 
its  most  strenuous  advocates. 

In  1816  the  Conference  again  assembled  on  the  first 
of  May  in  Baltimore.  The  war  with  Great  Britain  had 
just  closed,  and  left,  as  has  been  noticed,  some  disturb- 
ance between  the  Wesleyan  and  American  Methodist 


9  Lee's  Life  of  Lee,  p.  475,  note.    Bangs  (ii,  332)  is  erroneous  in 

supposing  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  Conference  records  relating  to 

this  question  from  1792  to  1808.     The  record  of  1800  shows  that  it  waa 

then  acted  upon. 
d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  453 

bodies  by  the  encroachment  of  Wesleyan  missionaries 
on  the  Canadian  appointments.  Case  and  Ryan  were 
present  to  represent  the  Canadian  Church  on  the  sub- 
ject ;  Black  and  Bennett,  from  Xova  Scotia,  represented 
the  Wesleyans.  A  letter  from  the  English  Missionary 
Board  was  read,  full  of  congratulations  and  cordial 
sentiments,  but  soliciting  the  cession  of  the  Montreal 
appointment,  and  Lower  Canada  generally,  to  their 
control.  A  committee,  after  consulting  with  the  Can- 
ada representatives,  reported  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  Methodists,  of  both  Upper  and  Lower  Canada, 
wi-hed  the  continuance  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Ameri- 
can Church,  and  that  therefore  ;-  we  cannot,  consistently 
with  our  duty  to  the  societies,  give  up  any  part  of 
them."  The  Conference  voted  a  hundred  dollars  for 
the  expense  of  the  British  messengers  from  Xova  Scotia, 
and  an  amicable  letter  to  the  Wesleyan  Missionary 
Board. 

On  the  fourteenth  Enoch  George  and  Robert  R. 
Roberts  were  elected  bishops,  the  former  by  fifty-seven, 
the  latter  by  fifty,  votes,  out  of  one  hundred  and  six. 
A  course  of  study,  to  be  prepared  by  the  bishops,  or  a 
committee  appointed  by  them,  for  ministerial  candi- 
dates, who  were  to  be  examined  at  the  annual  Confer- 
ences, was  ordered;  the  first  example  of  any  such  re- 
quisition in  the  Church,  though  habits  of  reading  and 
stud}-  had  always  been  enjoined.  Measures  were  adopted 
providing  for  the  better  support  of  the  ministry;  for 
repressing  heretical  opinions;  for  abolishing  ] 
(which  were  yet  confined  to  New  England  Churches) 
and  assessments,  or  taxes,  in  support  of  preaching;  and 
for  the  li  Boule  and  Thomas 

Mason  were  elected  Booi  Agents,  and  the  order  for  the 
publication  of  the  "Methodist  Magazine"  was  repeated 


454  HISTORY     OF    THE 

by  a  motion  of  Bangs,  and  about  two  years  later  obeyed. 
The  question  of  the  election  of  presiding  elders  was 
again  elaborately  debated,  but  lost.  Pickering  mo  fed 
that  the  "  unfinished  business  of  the  last  General  Con- 
ference so  far  as  it  relates  to  slavery  "  be  referred  to  a 
select  committee.  The  committee  reported  their  "  opin 
ion  that,  in  existing  circumstances,  little  can  be  done  to 
abolish  a  practice  so  contrary  to  the  principles  of  moral 
justice.  They  are  sorry  to  say  that  the  evil  appears  to 
be  past  remedy,  and  they  are  led  to  deplore  the  de- 
structive consequences  which  have  already  accrued,  and 
are  yet  likely  to  result  therefrom.  They  find  that  in 
the  South  and  West  the  civil  authorities  render  eman- 
cipation impracticable,  and,  notwithstanding  they  are 
led  to  fear  that  some  of  our  members  are  too  easily 
contented  with  laws  so  unfriendly  to  freedom,  yet, 
nevertheless,  they  are  constrained  to  admit  that  to 
bring  about  such  a  change  in  the  civil  code  as  would 
favor  the  cause  of  liberty  is  not  in  the  power  of  the 
General  Conference.  They  have  also  made  inquiry 
into  the  regulations  pursued  by  the  annual  Confer- 
ences in  relation  to  this  subject,  and  they  find  that 
some  of  them  have  made  no  efficient  rules  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  thereby  leaving  our  people  to  act  as 
they  please."  It  was  therefore  "  Resolved,  by  the 
delegates  of  the  annual  Conferences  in  General  Con- 
ference assembled,  That  all  the  recommendatory  part 
of  the  second  division,  ninth  section,  and  first  answer 
of  our  form  of  Discipline,  after  the  word  'slavery/ 
be  stricken  out,  and  the  following  words  inserted  : 
1  Therefore  no  slaveholder  shall  be  eligible  to  any 
official  station  in  our  Church  hereafter  where  the 
laws  of  the  state  in  which  he  lives  will  admit  of 
emancipation,  and  permit  the  liberated  slave  to  enjoy 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        455 

freedom.'"     The  report  was  adopted  on  a  motion  bv 
Pickering. 

A  Book  Depository  at  Pittsburgh  was  authorized, 
an<l  the  Missouri  aud  Mississippi  Conferences  estab- 
lished. Axle)',  aided  by  Myers,  again  struck  against 
the  distillation  and  retailing  of  spirituous  liquors,  but 
without  success.  The  Conference  adjourned  on  the 
twenty-fourth  of  May. 


456  HISTORY    OF     THE 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

AUXILIARY    PLANS     AND    INSTITUTIONS;     LITERARY, 


Practical  Adjuncts  of  the  Methodistic  System  —  Its  Use  of  the  Press  — 
Wesley  the  Founder  of  the  System  of  "  Cheap  Publications  "  —  Great 
Variety  of  his  Literary  Works  —  Publishing  Enterprise  of  American 
Methodism  —  Robert  Williams  begins  it  —  Early  Legislation  respect- 
ing it  —  Origin  of  the  Book  Concern  —  Beauchamp's  "Christian 
Monitor"  —  "  Ziou's  Herald" — Progress  of  the  Book  Concern  — 
Its  present  Condition  and  Usefulness  —  The  Sunday-School  —  Wes- 
leyan  Methodism  first  Incorporates  it  in  the  Church  —  Asbury  Estab- 
lishes the  First  in  America  —  Early  Legislation  of  the  Church  re- 
specting it  —  Sunday-School  Union  —  Results  —  Education  —  Early 
Attempts  for  it  —  Asbury' s  Devotion  to  it  —  Results  —  Missions  — 
Relative  Position  of  Methodism  in  their  History  —  Coke  —  Sketch  of 
the  Progress  of  American  Methodism  in  Domestic  and  Foreign  Mis- 
sions —  German  Methodism. 

The  practical,  or  Disciplinary,  as  well  as  the  Theological, 
system  of  Methodism  has  been  minutely  defined  in  its 
appropriate  place.1  But  a  Church  must,  in  this  age, 
have  other,  not  to  say  extra-ecclesiastical,  means  of 
labor  if  it  would  meet  the  ever  varying  wants  of  the 
world,  and  not  stagnate  and  die.  Methodism  has  hab- 
itually been  adding  such  auxiliaries  to  its  working  sys- 
tem. They  have  been  noted  in  their  due  time,  as  they 
have,  one  after  another,  sprung  up;  but  their  fuller  con- 
sideration has  been  reserved  till  the  present  stage  of  our 
narrative,  when  their  series — literary,  educational,  and 
missionary  —  had  become  substantially  complete.  In 
order  to  estimate  them  adequately,  their  results,  beyond 

1  At  the  organization  of  the  Church,  vol.  ii,  b.  3,  particularly  chaps 
4  and  5. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         457 

our  chronological  limits,  must  be,  ind  can  legitimately 
be,  briefly  anticipated.  They  afford  some  of  the  most 
important  and  startling  facts  of  the  history  of  the 
Church. 

American  Methodism  from  its  organization,  and  even 
before  that  date,  appreciated  the  importance  of  the 
press.  The  example  and  injunctions  of  Wesley  kept 
the  denomination,  not  only  in  England,  but  wherever  it 
extended,  zealous  in  the  diffusion  not  only  of  religious 
literature,  but  of  "useful  knowledge"  in  general.  He 
was  the  founder  of  the  system  of  "  cheap  publications ;" 
cheap  prices  sustained  by  large  sales.2  The  literary 
labors  of  Wesley  would  seem,  aside  from  all  his  other 
services,  to  be  sufficient  for  the  lives  of  half  a  score  of  men. 
A  German  historian  of  Methodism3  classifies,  with  Ger- 
man elaborateness,  the  great  variety  of  his  literary 
works,  as  Poetical,  Philological,  Philosophical,  Histori- 
cal, and  Theological.     Though  he  probably  wrote  before 

2  Lackington,  the  famous  London  publisher,  claimed  this  distinction ; 
but  Wesley  preceded  him,  at  least  in  religions  literature,  and  Lacking- 
ton,  who  was  a  Methodist,  was  set  up  in  business  by  the  aid  of  Wes- 
ley's •'Fund,''  established  at  City  Road  1'or  the  assistance  of  poor 
business  men. 

Vollstiindige  Geschiehte  der  Methodisten  in  England,  aus  Glaub- 
Wiirdigen  Quellen,  etc.  Von  Dr.  Johaun  Gotlieb  Burkhard,  etc. 
Nurnberg,  1795.  My  copy  of  this  work  is  (lie  only  one  in  this  country, 
so  far  as  I  know.  It  was  printed  within  four  years  after  the  death  of 
Wesley,  and  is  the  lir=t  History  of  Methodism  ever  published,  if  we 
'a  own  pamphlet  sketch.  Burkhard  was  pa-tor  of  a 
in  Church  "in  the  Savoy,"  London,  lie  was  personally  ac- 
quainted with  the  Wesleys,  Wbitefield,  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon, 
aL  J  the  other  Methodist  founders,  and  obtained  his  data  from  imme- 
diate Xo  Methodist  writer  lias  hitherto  seemed  to  be  aware 
ofthi  of  his  "  history."  Whitehead,  the  executor  and  1 
rapherof  ■  a  that  he  found  among  hi-  pap  re  a  Latin  Letter 
from  Burkhard,  requesting  documentary  materials,  etc.,  but  knew 
nothing  of  the  result  The  work  i-  in  two  volume-  in  one.  I  have 
availed  myself  of  it  in  the  "  History  of  the  Religious  afovem<  nt  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  called  Methodism,' 


458  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Wesley's  death,  he  states  that  many  of  these  writings, 
after  ten  or  twenty  editions,  could  not  be  obtained 
without  difficulty,  and  the  whole  could  not  be  purchased 
for  less  than  ten  guineas,  notwithstanding  they  were 
published  at  rates  surprisingly  cheap.  A  catalogue  of 
his  publications,  printed  about  1756,  contains  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  articles,  in  prose  and 
verse,  English  and  Latin,  on  grammar,  logic,  medicine, 
music,  poetry,  theology,  and  philosophy.  Two  thirds 
of  these  publications  were  for  sale  at  less  than  one  shil- 
ling each,  and  more  than  one  fourth  at  a  penny.  They 
were  thus  brought  within  reach  of  the  poorest  of  his 
people.  "  Simplify  religion  and  every  part  of  learning," 
he  wrote  to  Benson,  who  was  the  earliest  of  his  lay 
preachers  addicted  to  literary  labors.  To  all  his  itin- 
erants he  said,  "  See  that  every  society  is  supplied  with 
books,  some  of  which  ought  to  be  in  every  house."  In 
addition  to  his  collected  works,  (fourteen  octavo  vol- 
umes in  the  English  edition,  and  seven  in  the  American,) 
his  Biblical  "  Notes "  and  abridgments  make  a  cata- 
logue of  one  hundred  and  eighteen  prose  productions, 
(a  single  one  of  which,  "The  Christian  Library,"  con- 
tains fifty  volumes,)  forty-nine  poetical  publications  by 
himself  and  his  brother,  and  five  distinct  works  on  music. 
Not  content  with  books  and  tracts,  Wesley  projected,  in 
August,  1777,  the  Arminian  Magazine,  and  issued  the 
first  number  at  the  beginning  of  1778.  It  was  one  of 
the  first  four  religious  magazines  which  sprung  from  the 
resuscitated  religion  of  the  age,  and  which  began  this 
species  of  periodical  publications  in  the  Protestant 
world.  It  is  now  the  oldest  religious  periodical.  It 
may  be  questioned  whether  any  English  writer  of  the 
last  or  the  present  century  has  equaled  Wesley  in  the 
number  of  his  productions. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        459 

American  Methodism  lias  always  been  true  to  this 
example  of  English  .Methodism,  and  in  fact  has  far  tran- 
scended it.  Its  "Book  Concern"  is  now  the  largest 
religious  publishing  house  in  the  world.* 

We  have  seen  the  beginnings  of  this  literary  agency 
in  the  printing  and  circulation  of  Wesley's  sermons  by 
Robert  Williams,  one  of  the  earliest  lay  evangelists, 
who,  according  to  Lee's  history  of  the  Church,  "  spread 
them  through  the  country,  to  the  great  advantage  of 
religion,  opening  the  way  for  the  preachers  where  these 
had  never  been  before."  But  as  early  as  the  first  Con- 
ference (1773)  this  individual  or  independent  publishing 
was  prohibited,  the  "  consent  of  the  brethren  "  being 
required,  because,  as  Lee  writes,  "  it  now  became  neces- 
sary for  all  the  preachers  to  be  united  in  the  same 
course,  so  that  the  profits  ensuing  therefrom  might  be 
divided  among  them,  or  applied  to  some  charitable  pur- 
pose." "  Be  active,"  commanded  the  Church  to  its 
ministry  at  its  organization  of  1784,  "be  active  in  the 
diffusion  of  Mr.  Wesley's  books.  Every  '  assistant ' 
may  beg  money  of  the  rich  to  buy  '  books  for  the  poor ;'  " 
and  it  was  ordained  at  the  same  time  that  "  they  should 
take  care  that  every  society  be  duly  supplied  with 
books.''  The  Conferences  of  1787  made  further  provis- 
ions for  the  purpose,  and  "from  this  time,"  says  Lee, 
';  we  began  to  publish  more  of  our  own  books  than  ever 
before,  and  the  principal  part  of  the  business  was  carried 
«>n  in  New  York.'"  No  publisher  or  "Book  Agent" 
3  yet  named,  however;  but,  two  years  later,  we  find 
Philip  Cox  and  John  Dickins  designated  to  that  office 
in  the  Minutes.  The  former  acted  as  a  sort  of  colpor- 
teur at  large  for  three  years,  the  first  American  example 

-  Bee  "History  of  the  Religions  Movement,"  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  491,  et 
•*q.,  where  a  fuller  account  lo  literature  is  ^ivea. 

D— 30 


460  HISTORY    OF    THE 

of  that  useful  office,  and  died  in  it,  "  after  circulating," 
says  his  obituary  in  the  Minutes,  "  many  hundred 
books  of  religious  instruction."  Dickins,  the  only 
Methodist  preacher  in  Philadelphia  in  1789,  began 
there,  at  that  time,  the  "  Methodist  Book  Concern,"  in 
addition  to  his  pastoral  labors.  The  first  volume  issued 
by  him  was  the  "  Christian  Pattern,"  Wesley's  transla- 
tion of  Kempis's  celebrated  "Imitation."  The  Meth- 
odist Discipline,  the  Hymn  Book,  Wesley's  Prim- 
itive Physic,  and  reprints  of  the  first  volume  of  the 
Arminian  Magazine,  and  Baxter's  Saint's  Rest,  fol- 
lowed. The  only  capital  of  the  Concern  was  about 
six  hundred  dollars,  lent  to  it  by  Dickins  himself.  In 
1  790  portions  of  Fletcher's  "  Checks  "  were  reprinted. 
In  1797  a  "  Book  Committee  "  was  appointed,  to  whom 
all  books  were  to  be  submitted  before  their  publication. 
In  1804  the  Concern  was  removed  from  Philadelphia  to 
the  city  of  New  York.  As  early  as  1796  the  General 
Conference  ordained  the  publication  of  a  "  Methodist 
Magazine,"  in  imitation  of  Wesley's  periodical ;  it  was 
not  successfully  attempted  till  1818.  It  still  prosper- 
ously continues,  under  the  title  of  the  Methodist 
Quarterly  Review.  Western  Methodism  had,  how- 
ever, anticipated  it  by  the  publication  of  Beauchamp's 
"Christian  Monitor,"  at  Chilicothe,  Ohio,  in  1815.  In 
1824  the  Concern  secured  premises  of  its  own  on 
Crosby- street,  with  presses,  bindery,  etc.  In  1823  the 
"  Youth's  Instructor,"  a  monthly  work,  was  begun. 
The  same  spirit  of  enterprise  led  to  the  publication 
of  the  Christian  Advocate  and  Journal,  which  ap- 
peared, for  the  first  time,  on  the  ninth  of  September. 
1826.  But  New  England  preceded  the  rest  of  the 
Church  in  providing  for  this  want;  in  1815  a  publi- 
cation was  commenced,  entitled,  "  The  New  England 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  461 

Missionary  Magazine."  It  was  edited  by  Martin  Ruter, 
and  printed  at  Concord,  N.  H.,  by  Isaac  Hill ;  but  it 
ceased  after  four  quarterly  numbers  had  been  issued. 
Iu  1821  the  New  England  Conference  formed  an  as- 
sociation, styled  the  "Society  for  Giving  and  Receiv- 
ing Religious  Intelligence."  This  s^ave  rise  to  Zion's 
Herald,  printed  by  Moore  and  Prouse,  under  the 
diiection  of  the  committee  of  the  society,  of  which 
Elijah  Hedding  was  president.  The  first  number  was 
issued  January  9,  1823,  on  a  small  royal  sheet,  the 
pages  measuring  only  nine  by  sixteen  inches.  Such 
was  the  origin  of  the  first  weekly  publication  of  Meth- 
odism in  the  world ;  a  paper  which  has  had  an  unsur- 
passed power  on  the  great  questions  and  crises  of  the 
Church. 

The  success  of  the  Advocate  was  remarkable.  "  In  a 
very  short  time,"  writes  Bangs,  one  of  its  original  pub- 
lishers, "its  number  of  subscribers  far  exceeded  every 
other  paper  published  in  the  United  States,  being  about 
twenty-five  thousand.  It  soon  increased  to  thirty  thou- 
sand, and  was  probably  read  by  more  than  one  hundred 
and  twenty  thousond  persons,  young  and  old."  It 
should  be  noticed  also  that,  at  the  earnest  request  of 
Methodists  west  of  the  mountains,  the  General  Confer- 
ence of  1820  authorized  the  establishment  of  a  branch 
of  the  Book  Concern  in  Cincinnati,  under  Martin  Ruter, 
;i  precedent  which  led  to  secondary  branches  in  various 
parts  of  the  country.  The  rapid  increase  of  the  busi- 
w  bs  very  soon  made  it  accessary  to  enlarge  its  build- 
ings. Accordingly  all  the  vacant  ground  in  Crosby- 
street  was  i  ccupied.  But  even  these  additions  were 
found  insufficient  to  accommodate  the  several  depart- 
ments of  labor,  so  as  to  furnish  the  supply  of  books, 
now  in  constantly  increasing  demand.     Five  lots  were 


462  HISTORY    OF    THE 

therefore  purchased  on  Mulberry-street,  between  Broome 
and  Spring  streets,  and  one  building  erected  in  the  rear 
for  a  printing  office  and  bindery,  and  another  of  larger 
dimensions  projected.  In  the  month  of  September,  1833, 
the  entire  establishment  was  removed  into  the  new 
buildings.  In  these  commodious  rooms,  with  efficient 
agents  and  editors  at  work,  everything  seemed  to  be 
going  on  prosperously,  when  suddenly  in  1836  the 
entire  property  was  consumed  by  fire  at  night.  The 
Church  thus  lost  not  less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars.  The  buildings,  all  the  printing  and 
binding  materials,  a  vast  quantity  of  books,  bound  and 
in  sheets,  a  valuable  library  which  the  editor  had  been 
collecting  for  years,  were  in  a  few  hours  destroyed. 
Fortunately  the  "  Concern "  was  not  in  debt.  By 
hiring  an  office  temporarily,  and  employing  outside 
printers,  the  agents  soon  resumed  their  business,  the 
smaller  works  were  put  to  press,  and  "the  Church's 
herald  of  the  news,  the  Christian  Advocate  and 
Journal,  soon  took  its  flight  again  (though  the  first 
number  after  the  fire  had  its  wings  much  short- 
ened) through  the  symbolical  heavens,  carrying  the 
tidings  of  our  loss,  and  of  the  liberal  and  steady 
efforts  which  were  making  to  reinvigorate  the  par- 
alyzed Concern." 

At  the  General  Conference  of  1836  the  plan  of  a  new 
building  was  submitted  and  approved.  It  went  up  with 
all  convenient  dispatch,  in  a  much  better  style,  more 
durable,  and  safer  against  fire  than  the  former  struct  hit. 
The  front  edifice  is  one  hundred  and  twenty-one  feet  in 
length,  and  thirty  in  breadth,  four  stories  high  above 
the  basement,  with  offices  for  the  agents  and  clerks,  a 
bookstore,  committee  rooms,  etc.  The  building  in  the 
rear  is  sixty-five  feet  in  length,  thirty  in  breadth,  and 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHIRCH.         463 

four  stories  high,  and  is  used  for  stereotying,  printing, 
! uncling:,  eta     Large  additions  have  since  been  made. 

In  our  day  (18C6)  the  Methodist  Book  Concern,  aside 
from  that  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
which  was  founded  by  a  division  of  its  funds,  comprises 
two  branches,  eastern  and  western,  and  seven  deposit 
ories,  with  an  aggregate  capital  of  more  than  $837,000. 
Four  "Book  Agents,''  appointed  by  the  General  Con- 
ference, manage  its  business.  It  has  twelve  editors  of 
its  periodicals,  nearly  five  hundred  clerks  and  opera- 
tives, and  between  twenty  and  thirty  cylinder  and 
power  presses  constantly  in  operation.  It  publishes 
about  five  hundred  "  General  Catalogue  "  bound  books, 
besides  many  in  the  German  and  other  languages,  and 
about  fifteen  hundred  Sunday  school  volumes.  A  Tract 
Society  is  one  of  its  adjuncts,  and  its  tract  publications 
number  about  nine  hundred  in  various  tongues.  Its 
periodicals  are  a  mighty  agency,  including  one  Quar- 
terly Review,  four  monthlies,  one  semi-monthly,  and 
eight  weeklies,  with  an  aggregate  circulation  of  over 
one  million  of  copies  per  month.  Its  Quarterly  and 
some  of  its  weeklies  have  a  larger  circulation  than  any 
other  periodicals  of  the  same  class  in  the  nation,  proba- 
bly in  the  world. 

The  influence  of  this  great  institution,  in  the  diffusion 
of  popular  literature  and  the  creation  of  a  taste  for 
reading  among  the  great  masses  of  the  denomination, 
has  been  incalculable.  It  has  scattered  periodicals  and 
books  all  over  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi.  Its  sales 
in  that  great  domain,  in  the  quadrennial  period  ending 
with  January  31,  1SG4,  amounted  to  about  81,200,000. 
If  Methodism  had  made  no  other  contribution  to  the 
progress  of  knowledge  and  civilization  in  the  New 
World  than  that  of  this  powerful  institution,  this  alone 


464  HISTORY    OF    THE 

would  suffice  to  vindicate  its  claim  to  the  respect  of  the 
enlightened  world.  Its  ministry  has  often  been  falsely 
disparaged  as  unfavorable  to  knowledge ;  but  it  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  its  ministry  founded  this  stu- 
pendous means  of  popular  intelligence,  and  has  contin- 
ued to  work  it  with  increasing  success  up  to  the  present 
time.  They  have  been,  as  we  have  seen,  its  salesmen, 
and  have  scattered  its  publications  over  their  circuits. 
Wesley  enjoined  this  service  upon  them  in  their  Disci- 
pline.  "  Carry  books  with  you  on  every  round,"  he 
said ;  "  leave  no  stone  unturned  in  this  work ;"  and 
thus  have  they  spread  knowledge  in  their  courses  over 
the  whole  land,  and  built  up  their  unparalleled  "  Book 
Concern."  There  has  never  been  an  instance  of  defalca- 
tion on  the  part  of  its  "  agents ;"  it  has  never  failed  in 
any  of  the  financial  rev ulsions  of  the  country ;  and  it  is 
now  able,  by  its  large  capital,  to  meet  any  new  literary 
necessity  of  the  denomination.  Among  its  agents  and 
editors  have  been  some  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  Church, 
some  of  whom  have  been  noticed,  but  most  of  whom 
pertain  to  dates  beyond  our  limits.  Ten  of  them  have 
been  called  from  its  service  to  the  episcopate  in  the 
northern  Church  alone.5 

The  Sunday-school  system  of  the  Church  has  been 
closely  allied  to  its  Book  Concern.  I  have  heretofore 
given  some  account  of  its  origin,6  showing  that  Method- 
ism shared  in  that  important  event  in  England  ;  that  it 

6  While  preparing  the  present  work  the  author  was  called  upon  to 
provide  a  "  Centenary  Book  "  for  the  celebration  of  1866,  by  condens- 
ing such  parts  of  his  published  volumes,  and  the  manuscript  contents 
of  this,  as  might  be  appropriate.  In  abridging  some  portions  he  also 
enlarged  others,  especially  the  minuter  statistics,  in  order  to  adap 
the  book  to  its  special  occasion.  Readers  who  wish  more  complete 
figures  on  this  and  the  ensuing  subjects  are  referred  to  the  "  Cente 
nary  Book,"  and  also  to  the  "Life  of  Dr.  Bangs." 

«  Vol.  ii,  p.  503. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        465 

Hist  incorporated  the  institution  in  the  Church;  that 
Francis  Asbury  e:  :ablished  the  first  school  of  the  kind 
in  the  new  world  in  1786,  at  the  house  of  Thomas  Cren- 
shaw, m  Hanover  County,  Va. ;  and  that  this  first  at- 
tempt prefigured  one  of  the  greatest  later  advantages  ol 
the  institution  by  giving  a  useful  preacher  to  the  denom- 
ination. In  1790  the  first  recognition  of  Sunday-schools 
by  an  American  Church  was  made  by  the  vote  of  the 
Methodist  Conferences,  ordering  their  formation  through- 
out  the  Church,  and  also  the  compilation  of  a  book  for 
them.  Methodism  for  many  years  made  no  provision 
for  the  general  organization  or  affiliation  of  its  Sunday- 
schools.  Its  Book  Concern  issued  some  volumes  suitable 
for  their  libraries,  chiefly  by  the  labors  of  John  P.  Dur- 
bin,  who  prepared  its  first  library  volume,  and  its  first 
Question  Book  ;  but  no  adequate,  no  systematic  atten- 
tion was  given  to  this  sort  of  literature.  It  was  obvious, 
on  a  moment's  reflection,  that  an  almost  illimitable  field 
for  the  enlargement  of  the  business  of*  the  Concern,  and 
the  diffusion  of  useful  knowledge,  was  at  its  command  in 
this  direction.  Accordingly  the  u  Sunday-School  Union" 
was   organized   on   the   second   of  April,   1827.     Bangs 

3  that  '•  the  measure  was  hailed  with  grateful  delight 
by  our  friends  and  brethren  throughout  the  country. 
it  received  the  sanction  of  the  several  annual  Confer- 
ences, which  recommended  the  people  of  their  charge  to 
form  auxiliaries  in  every  circuit  and  station,  and  send  to 
the  general  depository  in  New  York  for  their  books; 
and  Biich  were  the  zeal  and  unanimity  with  which  they 
entered  into  this  work,  that  at  the  first  annual  meeting 
of  the  society  there  were  reported  251  auxiliaries,  1,025 
school-,    2,  rap  rintendents,    10,290    teachers,    and 

.  10  scholars,  besides  above  2,000  man  1  visitors. 

Never,  therefore,  did   an   institution  go   into   operation 


4:66  HISTORY    OF    THE 

under  more  favorable  circumstances,  or  was  hailed  with 
a  more  universal  joy,  than  the  Sunday  School  Union  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church."  This  great  success, 
however,  could  not  save  it  from  the  misfortunes  of  bad 
management.  Under  "an  injudicious  attempt,"  con- 
tinues Bangs,  many  years  later,  "to  amalgamate  the 
Bible,  Tract,  and  Sunday-School  Societies  together,  by 
which  the  business  of  these  several  societies  might  be 
transacted  by  one  board  of  management,"  and  by  other 
causes,  it  declined,  if  indeed  it  did  not  fail,  until  resus- 
citated by  the  zeal  of  some  New  York  Methodists,  and 
by  an  act  of  the  General  Conference  of  1840.  It  passed 
through  modifications  till  it  assumed  its  present  effective 
form  of  organization,  and  grew  into  colossal  proportion? 
under  the  labors  of  its  indefatigable  secretaries,  Drs 
Kidder  and  Wise.  It  now  (1866)  has  (aside  from  its 
offspring  in  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South) 
13,400  schools,  more  than  150,000  teachers  and  officers, 
and  near  918,000  scholars,  about  19,000  of  whom  are 
reported  as  converted  during  the  last  year.  There  ore 
in  the  libraries  of  these  schools  more  than  2,529,000 
volumes.  They  are  supported  at  an  annual  expense  of 
more  than  $216,000,  besides  nearly  $18,000  given  to  the 
Union  for  the  assistance  of  poor  schools.  There  are 
circulated  among  them,  semi-monthly,  nearly  260,000 
"  Sunday-School  Advocates,"  the  juvenile  periodical  of 
the  Union.  The  numbers  of  conversions  among  pupils 
of  the  schools,  as  reported  for  the  last  eighteen  years, 
amount  to  more  than  285,000,  showing  that  much  of  the 
extraordinary  growth  of  the  Church  is  attributable  to 
this  mighty  agency.  The  Union  has  four  periodicals 
for  teachers  and  scholars,  two  in  English,  and  two  in 
German,  and  their  aggregate  circulation  is  nearly  300,000 
per   number.      Its   catalogue   of  Sunday-school   books 


METHODIST    KIM  SCO  PAL    CHURCH.  467 

•oruprises  more  than  2,300  different  works,  of  which 
more  than  a  million  copies  are  issued  annually.  In- 
cluding other  issues,  it  has  nearly  2,500  publications 
adapted  to  the  use  of  Sunday-schools.  In  fine,  few,  if 
any,  institutions  of  American  Methodism  wield  a 
mightier  power  than  its  Sunday-School  Union.  These 
figures,  however,  show  but  partially  the  Sunday  school 
enterprise  of  American  Methodism,  as  they  do  not  in- 
clude those  of  its  several  branches,  which,  at  dates  sub- 
sequent to  the  period  reached  by  our  narrative,  grew 
out  of,  and  broke  from,  the  parent  Church.  These  will 
hereafter  be  given. 

We  have  already  had  frequent  intimations  in  these 
pages  of  the  interest  of  Methodism  for  Education.  The 
founders  of  the  denomination  in  England  were  classic- 
ally educated  men,  and  it  had  its  birth  in  a  university. 
Wesley,  in  the  very  year  which  is  recognized  as  its 
epoch,  (1 739,)  began  its  noted  "  Kingswood  School," 
and  at  his  first  Conference  (1744)  proposed  a  theologi- 
cal school,  a  "  seminary  for  laborers,"  or  lay  preachers, 
a  project  which  was  at  last  realized  by  the  present 
two  '-Theological  Institutions"  of  English  Methodism. 
American  Methodism  early  shared  this  interest  of  the 
parent  body  in  education.  Dickins  had  proposed,  as 
early  as  1780,  an  academic  institution  for  the  denomina- 
tion. Id  the  year  of  the  organization  of  the  Church  (l  7^4) 
Coke  and  Asbury  projected  the  Cokesbury  College,  and 
laid  its  foundations  the  next  year  at  Abingdon,  Md.  In 
17-7  Asbury  consecrated  and  opened  it  with  public 
ceremonies.  In  1705  it  was  destroyed  by  fire;  but  a 
second  edifice  was  soon  after  provided  in  Baltimore; 
this,  however,  shared  the  fate  of  its  predecessor  in  pre- 
cisely one  year.  It  1,  -upposed  that  these  dis- 
asters not  only  discouraged  Asbury,  but  led  him  fall* 


468  HISTORY    OF    'lHE 

ciously  to  infer  that  Providence  designed  not  the 
denomination  to  devote  its  energy  to  education.  It 
was  far  otherwise,  however,  with  that  great  man.  He 
did  not  believe  that  collegiate  or  pretentious  institu- 
tions of  learning  should  be  attempted  by  the  Church 
while  yet  in  its  infancy,  but  he  never  abandoned  the 
design  of  secondary  or  more  practically  adapted  insti- 
tutions. He  formed  indeed  a  grand  scheme,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  the  establishment  of  academies  all  over  the 
territory  of  the  denomination,  one  for  each  "  district,"  a 
district  then  being  a  Conference. 

As  far  south  as  Georgia  contributions  in  land  and 
tobacco  were  received  for  the  founding  of  a  college 
there  in  1789;  and  in  the  yet  frontier  settlements  of 
Redstone,  Pa.,  and  Kentucky,  seminaries  were  attempted 
under  Asbury's  auspices.  In  1789  overtures  for  an 
academy  in  Kentucky  were  approved  by  him  and  the 
Conferences,  and  the  next  year  the  Western  Conference 
began  subscriptions  for  it.  At  Bethel,  Ky.,  an  edifice 
and  organization  were  really  established,  but  financially 
broke  down  at  last,  prostrating  the  health  and  intellect 
of  Poythress  by  its  fall.  At  Uniontown,  Western 
Pennsylvania,  an  academy  was  started  in  1794  or  1795 
by  Asbury's  influence,  and  survived  some  few  years, 
educating  Thomas  Bell,  Samuel  Parker,  and  other  emi- 
nent men.  Thus  in  its  primitive  struggles  of  the  last 
century,  did  the  Church  show  its  appreciation  of  educa- 
tion. In  1792  Asbury  was  ambitious  to  place  "  two 
thousand  children  under  the  best  plan  of  education  ever 
known  in  this  country." 

Before  the  close  of  the  last  century  Hope  Hull  estab- 
lished an  academy  in  Wilkes  County,  Ga.,  and  we  have 
seen  Roberts,  M' Henry,  and  Valentine  Cook  personally 
devoting  themselves  to  the  work  of  education.     In  1818 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  469 

Dr.  Samuel  K.  Jennings  and  other  Methodists  attempted 
a  college  in  Baltimore,  but  this  also  failed.  Xo  failures, 
however,  no  discouragement,  could  obliterate  from  the 
mind  of  the  denomination  the  conviction  of  its  responsi- 
bility fi>1  the  education  of  the  increasing  masses  of  its 
people.  In  1820  the  General  Conference  recommended 
that  all  the  annual  Conferences  should  establish  semi- 
naries within  their  boundaries,  thus  proposing  to  supply 
the  whole  republic  with  such  schools,  though  with  con- 
siderable territorial  intervals.  This  demonstration  of 
interest  for  education  in  the  supreme  body  of  the 
Church  was  prompted  by  the  spontaneous  enterprise  of 
the  ministry  and  the  people,  who,  three  years  before, 
had,  chiefly  under  the  guidance  of  Martin  Ruter,  started 
an  institution  in  New  England,  (at  Xew  Market,  X.  11.,) 
still  distinguished,  in  its  later  location,  at  V/ilbraham, 
Ma>s. ;  and  in  1819  another,  chiefly  under  the  guidance 
of  Xathan  Bangs,  in  Xew  York  city,  afterward  trans- 
ferred to  AVhite  Plains,  X.  Y.  The  impulse  thus  given 
not  only  produced  numerous  academies,  but  led,  in 
1823,  to  the  beginning  of  Augusta  College,  Ky.,  whose 
edifice  was  erected  in  1825,  and  commenced  the  series 
of  modern  collegiate  institutions  under  the  patronage  of 
the  Church,  so  that  by  the  General  Conference  of  1832, 
says  the  biographer  of  Hedding,  "the  'Wesleyan  Uni- 
rereity  had  been  established  at  Middletown,  Conn.,  and 
Dr.  Wilbur  Fisk,  of  the  Xew  England  Conference,  was 
at  its  head,  and  John  M.  Smith,  of  the  Xew  York  Con- 
ference, one  of  the  professors.  Madison  College,  now 
extinct,  but  whose  place  has  since  been  supplied  by 
Alleghany  College,  had  gone  into  successful  operation 
in  Western  Pennsylvania;  J.  EL  Fielding  had  succeeded 
II.  B.  Bascom  as  president,  and  II.  J.  Clark  wst  one  of 
the  professors;  both  were  members  of  the  Pittsburgh 


470  HISTORY     PF    THE 

Conference.  Augusta  College  had  been  established 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Kentucky  and  Ohio  Confer- 
ences ;  Martin  Ruter  was  president,  and  H.  B.  Bascom, 
J.  S.  Tomlinson,  J.  P.  Durbin,  and  Burr  H.  M'Cown, 
were  professors  ;  all  of  them  members  of  the  Kentucky 
Conference  except  J.  P.  Durbin,  who  belonged  to  the 
Ohio.  In  the  southwest,  Lagrange  College  had  been 
established  ;  Robert  Paine  was  president,  and  E.  D. 
Simms  one  of  the  professors.  In  Virginia,  Randolph 
Macon  College  had  been  established,  and  M.  P.  Parks, 
of  the  Virginia  Conference,  was  one  of  its  professors, 
and  Stephen  Olin  was  soon  after  placed  at  its  head. 
Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  no  less  than  five  colleges  had 
sprung  into  existence  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  and 
were  already  in  successful  operation  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  Church.  Several  Conference  seminaries 
also  had  been  established  ;  such  were  the  Cazenovia 
Seminary,  the  Maine  Wesleyan  Seminary,  Wilbraham 
Academy,  Genesee  Wesleyan  Seminary,  Shelbyville 
Female  Academy,  and  others,  which  were  in  successful 
operation  in  different  parts  of  the  Church."  7 

The  Church  could  not  pause  here.  Wesley,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  proposed  ministerial  education  at  his 
very  first  Conference,  and  the  British  Methodists  had 
embodied  the  proposition  in  two  imposing  "  theological 
institutions."  The  New  England  Methodists  agitated 
the  question  in  their  Church  periodical,  and  in  1839  a 
convention  was  called,  in  Boston,  to  provide  such  an 
institution.  It  was  founded  with  the  title  of  the  Wes- 
leyan Institute ;  it  struggled  through  severe  adversities, 
was  at  first  connected  with  the  Wesleyan  University, 
Middletown,  Conn.,  then  merged  in  the  Biblical  Insti- 
tute, Newbury,  Vt.,  but  at  last  was  located  in  Concord, 
i  Bishop  Clark's  Life  of  Redding 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         471 

N.  H.,  where  it  has  exerted  no  inconsiderable  influence 
upon  the  character  of  the  Xew  England  Methodist  min- 
istry. In  1^45  John  Dempster,  of  Xew  York  city, 
became  its  professor  of  theology.  He  threw  his  re- 
markable energy  into  the  cause  of  ministerial  education 
throughout  the  denomination,  and  not  only  forced  along 
the  Xew  England  institution  against  formidable  dis- 
couragements, but  became  a  leading  founder  of  the 
northwestern  seminary  at  Evanston,  111.,  where  a  Chi- 

_  Methodist  lady,  by  the  gift  of  property  amounting 
to  $300,000,  gave  endowment  and  her  name  to  the  Gar- 
rett Biblical  Iustitute. 

Thus  boarding  academies,  colleges,  and  theological 
seminaries  have  rapidly  grown  up  in  the  denomination 
till  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  alone  now  ( I  - 
reports  no  less  than  25  colleges,  (including  theological 
schools.)  having  158  instructors,  5,345  students.  $3,055,801 
endowments  and  other  property,  and  105,531  vol- 
umes in  their  libraries.  It  reports  also  77  academies, 
with  550  instructors  and  17,761  students,  10,462  of 
whom  are  females,  making  an  aggregate  of  102  institu- 
tions, with  714  instructors  and  23,106  students.  The 
southern  division  of  the  denomination  reported  before 
the  Rebellion  12  colleges  and  7  7  academies,  with  8,000 
students,  making  an  aggregate  for  the  two  bodies  of  ]  91 
in>titutions  and  31,106  students. 

The  moral  and  social  influence  of  such  a  series  of  edu- 
cational provisions,  reaching  from  the  year  of  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Church  to  our  own  day.  must  be  in- 
calculable:  and  could  it  point  the  world  to  no  other 
monuments  of  its  usefulness,  these  would  suffice  to 
iblish  its  claim-  as  one  of  the  effective  means  of  the 
intellectual  and  moral  progress  of  the  country. 

We  turn  to  another  and  more  immediately  eccles 


472  HISTORY    OF    THE 

cal  and  evangelical  interest,  which  was  formally  ink 
ated  in  the  Church,  as  I  have  shown,  before  the  expira- 
tion of  the  period  which  closes  our  narrative.  American 
Methodism  could  not  long  fail  to  imitate  the  example  of 
British  Methodism  in  the  "missionary  cause,"  for  the 
parent  Church  had  early  become  pre-eminent  before 
the  Christian  world  in  this  sublime  enterprise.  The 
idea  of  religious  missions  is  as  old  as  Christianity,  and 
has  been  exemplified  by  the  Papal  Church  through 
much  of  its  history,  and  in  the  ends  of  the  earth.  The 
Moravians  early  embodied  it  in  their  system.  In  the 
Protestantism  of  England  it  had  but  feeble  sway  till  the 
epoch  of  .Methodism.  That  grand  form  of  it  which  now 
characterizes  English  Protestantism  in  both  hemispheres, 
and  which  proposes  the  evangelization  of  the  whole 
race,  appeared  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Societies  for  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  had 
previously  existed  in  Great  Britain,  but  they  were  pro- 
vided chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  for  the  Christianization 
of  countries  which,  by  reason  of  their  political  depend- 
ence upon  England,  were  deemed  to  have  special  claims 
on  British  Christianity — the  inhabitants  of  India  and 
the  Indians  of  North  America.  An  historian  of  mis- 
sions, writing  in  1844,  says:  "It  was  not  until  almost 
within  the  last  fifty  years  that  the  efforts  of  the  relig- 
ious bodies  by  whom  Christian  missions  are  now  most 
vigorously  supported  were  commenced."8  Methodism 
was  essentially  a  missionary  movement,  domestic  and 
foreign.  It  initiated  not  only  the  spirit,  but  the  practi 
cal  plans  of  modern  English  missions.  Bishop  Coke  so 
represented  the  enterprise  in  his  own  person  for  many 
years  as  to  supersede  the  necessity  of  any  more  formal 
organization  of  it,  but  it  was  none  the  less  real  and 
8  Ellis's  History  of  the  Loudon  Missionary  Society,  vol.  i,  p  3. 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         473 

energetic.  The  historian  just  cited  says:  "The  Wes- 
icyan  Missionary  Society  was  formed  in  1817,  but  the 
first  Wesleyari  missionaries  who  went  out,  under  the 
superintendence  of  Coke,  entered  the  British  colonies  in 
1780.  The  Baptist  Missionary  Society  was  established 
in  1792,  the  London  Missionary  Society  in  1705,  and 
the  Edinburgh  or  Scottish  and  the  Glasgow  Missionary 
Societies  in  1796.  The  subject  also  engaged  the  atten- 
tion of  many  pious  persons  belonging  to  the  Established 
Church,  besides  those  connected  with  the  London  Mi>- 
sionary  Society,  and  by  members  of  that  communion 
the  Church  Missionary  Society  was  organized  in  the 
first  year  of  the  present  century."  The  London  Mis- 
sionary Society,  embracing  most  Dissenting  bodies  of 
England,  arose  under  the  influence  of  Calvinistic  Meth- 
odism,  and  the  Church  Missionary  Society  sprang  from 
the  evangelical  Low  Church  party  which  Methodism, 
Calvinistic  and  Arminian,  had  resuscitated  in  the  Estab 
iishment.  Venn,  the  son  of  the  Methodist  churchman 
Venn,  being  its  projector. 

Though  Coke  represented  the  Arminian-Methodist 
Mission  interest  as  its  founder,  secretary,  treasurer,  and 
collector,  it  really  took  a  distinct  form  some  six  years 
before  the  formation  of  the  first  of  the  above  named 
Coke  spent  more  than  a  year  in  bringing  the 
negro  mi  «fore  the  English  people  immediately 

after  his  second  visit  to  the  We>t  Indies.     In   17>6  a 
formal  address  w  I  to  the  public  in  behalf  of  a 

comprehensive  scheme  of  Methodist  missions.     It  was 
entitled  "An  Address  to  the  Pious  and  Benevolent, 
proposing  an   Annual  Subscription   for  the  Support  of 
Missionaries  in  the  Highlands  and  adjacent  [slancU 
-     -land,  the  Isle  .  an  1  Newfound- 

land,   the   West    Indies,   and    the    Province*    of   Nova 


474  HISTOKV     OF    THE 

Scotia  and  Quebec.  By  Thomas  Coke,  LL.D.  1786." 
It  speaks  of  "  a  mission  intended  to  be  established  in 
the  British  dominions  in  Asia,"  but  which  was  post- 
poned till  these  more  inviting  fields  should  be  occupied. 
This  scheme  was  called  in  the  address  an  "Institution;" 
it  was  really  such ;  though  not  called  a  society,  it  was 
one  in  all  essential  respects ;  and  if  the  fact  that  it  was 
not  an  extra-ecclesiastical  plan,  but  a  part  of  the  system 
of  Methodism,  should  detract  from  its  claim  of  prece- 
dence in  respect  to  later  institutions  of  the  kind,  that 
consideration  would  equally  detract  from  the  Moravian 
missions,  which  were  conducted  in  a  like  manner.  The 
address  filled  several  pages,  and  was  prefaced  by  a 
letter  from  Wesley  indorsing  the  whole  plan. 

The  next  year  (1787)  the  Wesleyan  Missions  bore 
the  distinrtive  title  of  "Missions  established  by  the 
Methodist  Society."  At  the  last  Conference  attended 
by  Wesley  (1790)  a  committee  of  nine  preachers,  of 
which  Coke  was  chairman,  was  appointed  to  take  charge 
of  this  new  interest.  Coke  continued  to  conduct  its 
chief  business ;  but  the  committee  were  his  standing 
counsel,  and  formed,  in  fact,  a  Mission  Board  of  Man- 
agers two  years  before  the  organization  of  the  first  of 
British  Missionary  Societies.  Collections  had  been 
taken  in  many  of  the  circuits  for  the  Institution,  and  in 
1793  the  Conference  formally  ordered  a  general  collec- 
tion for  it.  Coke  published  accounts  of  its  "receipts 
and  disbursements." 

In  this  manner  did  Methodism  early  prompt  the 
British  Churches,  and  call  forth  the  energies  of  the 
British  people,  in  plans  of  religious  benevolence  for  the 
whole  world.  Its  previous  missions  in  Scotland,  Wales, 
Ireland,  and  the  Channel  Islands  did  much  for  the  refor- 
mation of  the  domestic  population.     Besides  its  efforts 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CIIL'RCH.         475 

in  1*786  in  the  West  Indies,  it  began  its  evangelical 
labors  in  France  as  early  as  1791,  and  its  great  schemes 
in  Africa  in  1811  ;  in  Asia  in  1814;  in  Australasia  in 
1815  ;  in  Polynesia  in  1822;  until,  from  the  first  call  of 
Wesley  for  American  evangelists,  in  the  Conference  of 
1769,  down  to  our  day,  we  see  the  grand  enterprise 
reaching  to  the  shores  of  Sweden,  to  Germany,  France, 
and  the  Upper  Alps ;  to  Gibraltar  and  Malta ;  to  the 
banks  of  the  Gambia,  to  Sierra  Leone,  and  to  the  Gold 
Coast ;  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  ;  to  Ceylon,  to  India, 
and  to  China ;  to  the  Colonists  and  Aboriginal  tribes  of 
Australia ;  to  New  Zealand,  and  the  Friendly  and  Fiji 
Islands  ;  to  the  islands  of  the  Western  as  well  as  of  the 
Southern  Hemisphere  ;  and  from  the  Gulf  of  St.  Law- 
rence to  Puget's  Sound.  From  1803  to  the  present 
time  Wesleyan  Methodism  has  contributed  more  than 
twenty  millions  of  dollars  for  foreign  evangelization. 
In  England  the  "Church  Missionary  Society"  aloue  ex- 
ceeds its  annual  collections  for  the  foreign  field  ;  but 
the  Wesleyan  Society  enrolls  more  communicants  in  its 
Mission  Churches  than  all  other  British  missionary 
societies  combined.  The  historian  of  religion  during 
the  last  and  present  centuries  would  find  it  difficult  to 
point  to  a  more  magnificent  monument  of  Christianity. 
Coke,  the  first  bishop  of  American  Methodism,  was  to 
the  end  of  his  life  the  representative  character  of  Meth- 
odist Missions.  In  bis  old  age  he  offered  himself,  as  we 
shall  hereafter  see,  to  the  British  Conference  as  a  mis- 
sionary to  the  East  Indies.  lie  died  on  the  voyage,  and 
was  buried  in  the  Indian  Ocean.  His  death  struck  not 
only  a  knell  through  the  Church,  but  a  summons  lor  it 
to  rise  universally  and  march  around  the  world.  lie 
had  long  entertained  the  idea  of  universal  evangeliza- 
tion aa  ihe  exponent  characteristic  of  the  Methodist 
D— a ; 


476  HISTORY    OF    THE 

movement.  The  influence  of  the  movement  on  English 
Protestantism  had  tended  to  such  a  result,  for  in  both 
England  and  America  nearly  all  denominations  had  felt 
the  power  of  the  great  revival  not  only  during  the  days 
of  Whitefield  and  Wesley,  but  ever  since.  Anglo 
Saxon  Christianity,  in  both  hemispheres,  had  been 
quickened  into  new  life,  and  had  experienced  a  change 
amounting  to  a  moral  revolution.  The  magnificent 
apostolic  idea  of  evangelization  in  all  the  earth,  and  till 
all  the  earth  should  be  Christianized,  had  not  only  been 
restored,  as  a  practical  conviction,  but  had  become 
pervasive  and  dominant  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
Churches,  and  was  manifestly  thenceforward  to  shape 
the  religious  history  of  the-  Protestant  world.  The 
great  fermentation  of  the  mind  of  the  civilized  nations — 
the  resurrection,  as  it  may  be  called,  of  popular  thought 
and  power — contemporaneous  in  the  civil  and  religious 
worlds,  in  the  former  by  the  American  and  French 
Revolutions,  in  the  latter  by  the  Methodist  movement — 
seemed  to  presage  a  new  history  of  the  human  race. 
And  history  is  compelled  to  record,  with  the  frankest 
admissicn  of  the  characteristic  defects  of  Thomas  Coke, 
that  no  man,  not  excepting  Wesley  or  Whitefield,  more 
completely  represented  the  religious  significance  of  those 
eventful  times. 

Though  American  Methodism  was  many  years  with- 
out a  distinct  missionary  organization,  it  was  owing  to 
the  fact  that  its  whole  Church  organization  was  essen- 
tially a  missionary  scheme.  It  was,  in  fine,  the  great 
Home  Mission  enterprise  of  the  North  American  con- 
tinent, and  its  domestic  work  demanded  all  its  resources 
of  men  and  money.  It  early  began,  however,  special 
labors  among  the  aborigines  and  slaves.  The  history 
of  some  of  these  labors  would  be  an  exceedingly  inter 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL,    CHURCH.  477 

estiug  and  even  romantic  record,  but  our  limits  admit 
but  this  passing  allusion  to  them,  after  the  account 
lately  given  of  their  singular  origin  by  Stewart,  the 
African.  Their  subsequent  progress  belongs  to  the  his- 
torian of  the  ensuing  periods  of  Methodism,  and  will 
afford  some  of  his  most  thrilling  facts. 

The  year  1^19  is  memorable  as  the  epoch  of  the 
formal  organization  of  the  American  Methodist  mis- 
sionary wfcrk.  Nathan  Bangs,  long  distinguished  as 
its  secretary  and  chief  representative,  was  also  its  chief 
founder.  He  made  it  the  theme  of  much  preliminary 
conversation  with  his  colleagues  and  the  principal 
Methodist  laymen  of  Xew  York  city.  Laban  Clark 
introduced  it  by  a  resolution  to  the  attention  of  the 
metropolitan  preachers  at  their  weekly  meeting,  "  con- 
sisting," says  Bangs,  "of  Freeborn  Garrettson,  Samuel 
Merwin,  Laban  Clark,  Samuel  Howe,  Seth  Crowell, 
Thomas  Thorp,  Joshua  Soule,  Thomas  Mason,  and  my- 
self. After  an  interchange  of  thoughts  the  resolution 
was  adopted,  and  Garrettson,  Clark,  and  myself  were 
appointed  a  committee  to  draft  a  constitution.  When 
this  committee  met  we  agreed  to  Avrite,  each,  a  consti- 
tution, then  come  together,  compare  them,  and  adopt 
the  one  which  should  be  considered  the  most  suitable. 
The  one  prepared  by  myself  was  adopted,  submitted  to 
the  Preachers'  Meeting,  and,  after  some  slight  verbal 
alterations,  was  finally  approved.  We  then  agreed  to 
call  a  public  meeting  in  the  For syth-st reel  Church  on 
he  evening  of  the  fifth  of  April,  L819,  which  was  ac- 
cordingly done.  I  was  '-ailed  to  the  chair,  and,  after 
the  reading  of  the  constitution,  Joshua  Soule  moved 
it-  adoption,  and  supported  bis  motion  by  a  power- 
ful speech,  concluding  by  au  appeal  i"  the  people  i" 
come  forward  and  subscribe  it.     lie  was  seconded  b\ 


478  HISTOEY    OF    THE 

Freeborn  Garrettson,  who  also  pleaded  in  favor  of  the 
scheme  from  his  experience  in  the  itinerant  field  from 
Virginia  to  Nova  Scotia."  The  constitution  was  unani- 
mously adopted,  and  the  following  officers  were  chosen  : 
Bishop  M'Kendree,  President ;  Bishops  George  ana 
Roberts,  and  Nathan  Bangs,  Vice-presidents ;  Thomas 
Mason,  Corresponding  Secretary;  Joshua  Soule,  Treas- 
urer; Francis  Hall,  Clerk;  Daniel  Ayres,  Recording 
Secretary.  The  following  managers  were  also  chosen  : 
Joseph  Smith,  Robert  Mathison,  Joseph  Sandford, 
George  Suckley,  Samuel  L.  Waldo,  Stephen  Dando, 
Samuel  B.  Harper,  Lancaster  S.  Burling,  William  Duval, 
Paul  Hick,  John  Westfield,  Thomas  Roby,  Benjamin 
Disbrow,  James  B.  Gascoigne,  William  A.  Mercein, 
Philip  J.  Arcularius,  James  B.  Oakley,  George  Caines, 
Dr.  Seaman,  Dr.  Gregory,  John  Boyd,  M.  H.  Smith, 
Nathaniel  Jarvis,  Robert  Snow,  Andrew  Mercein,  Jo- 
seph Moses,  John  Paradise,  William  Myers,  William  B. 
Skidtnore,  Nicholas  Schureman,  James  Wood,  Abraham 
Paul.  The  historian  of  the  society  says  :  "  It  is  obvious 
that  almost  its  entire  business  was  conducted  by  Dr. 
Bangs  for  many  years.  In  addition  to  writing  the  con- 
stitution, the  address  and  circular,  he  was  the  author  of 
every  Annual  Report,  with  but  one  exception,  from  the 
organization  of  the  society  down  to  the  year  1841,  a 
period  of  twenty-two  years.  He  filled  the  offices  of 
corresponding  secretary  and  treasurer  for  sixteen  years, 
without  a  salary  or  compensation  of  any  kind,  until  his 
appointment  to  the  first  named  office  by  the  General 
Conference  of  1836.  That  he  has  contributed  more 
than  any  other  man  living  to  give  character  to  our 
missionary  operations,  by  the  productions  of  his  pen 
and  his  laborious  personal  efforts,  is  a  well  authenti- 
cated   fact,    which    the    history    of   the    Church    fully 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        47(.« 

attests."  In  this  single  instance  of  his  manifold  public 
life  he  was  to  be  identified  with  a  grand  religious  his- 
tory. He  was  to  sec  the  annual  receipts  of  the  society 
enlarged  from  the  $8*23  of  its  first  year  to  $250,374,  (in- 
( luding  its  offspring  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
South,  to  half  a  million,)  and  its  total  receipts,  down  to 
the  last  year  of  his  life,  more  than  four  and  a  half  mill- 
ions, not  including  the  southern  society.  lie  was  to 
witness  the  rise  (chiefly  under  the  auspices  of  the  So- 
ciety) of  American  German  Methodism,  an  epochal  fact 
in  the  history  of  his  denomination,  next  in  importance 
to  the  founding  of  the  Church  by  Embury  and  Straw- 
bridge.  Without  a  recognized  missionary  for  some 
time  after  its  origin,  the  society  was  to  present  to  his 
dying  gaze  a  list  of  nearly  four  hundred,  and  more  than 
thirty-three  thousand  mission  communicants,  represent- 
ing the  denomination  in  many  parts  of  the  United 
States,  in  Norway,  Sweden,  Germany,  Switzerland, 
Bulgaria,  Africa,  India,  China,  and  South  America. 
Ass i sting  in  this  great  work,  and  rejoicing  in  its 
triumphs,  he  was  to  outlive  all  its  original  officers  but 
three,  and  all  its  original  managers  save  three. 

The  next  General  Conference  (in  1820)  sanctioned 
the  scheme.  Emory  submitted  an  elaborate  report  on 
the  subject.  After  reasoning  at  length  upon  it,  he 
asked,  "Can  we,  then,  be  Listless  to  the  cause  of  mis- 
sions? We  cannot.  Methodism  itself  is  a  missionary 
tern.  Yield  the  missionary  Bpirit,  and  you  yield  the 
very  life-blood  of  the  cause,  in  missionary  efforts  oui 
British  brethren  are  before  us.  We  congratulate  them 
on  their  zeal  and  their  Buccess.  But  your  committee  beg 
leave  to  entreat  this  Conference  to  emulate  their  exam- 
ple." The  Conference  adopted,  with  some  emendations, 
the  constitution  prepared  for  the  Bociety  by  Bangs,    lie 


480  HISTORY    OF    THE 

thus  saw  his  great  favorite  measure  incorporated,  it  may 
be  hoped  forever,  into  the  structure  of  the  Church.  He 
writes  :  "  These  doings  of  the  Conference  in  relation  to 
the  Missionary  Society  exerted  a  most  favorable  influ- 
ence upon  the  cause,  and  tended,  mightily  to  remove 
the  unfounded  objections  which  existed,  in  some  mind? 
n  gainst  this  organization."  By  the  session  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conference  of  1832  the  society's  operations  nad 
extended  through  the  states  and  territories  of  the 
nation,  and  had  become  a  powerful  auxiliary  of  the 
itinerant  system  of  the  Church.  Hitherto  it  had  been 
prosecuted,  as  a  domestic  scheme,  for  the  frontier  cir- 
cuits, the  slaves,  the  free  colored  people,  and  the  Indian 
tribes ;  it  had  achieved  great  success  in  this  wide  field, 
and  was  now  strong  enough  to  reach  abroad  to  other 
lands.  It  proposed,  with  the  sanction  of  this  Confer- 
ence, to  plant  its  standard  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  and 
send  agents  to  Mexico  and  South  America  to  ascertain 
the  feasibility  of  missions  in  those  countries.  Thus 
were  begun  those  foreign  operations  of  the  society 
which  have  become  its  most  interesting  labors. 

Its  domestic  Indian  missions  had  now  become  nu- 
merous, and  some  of  them  were  remarkably  prosperous ; 
"  attended,"  Bangs  says,  "  with  unparalleled  success." 
In  Upper  Canada  they  numbered,  in  1831,  no  less  than 
ten  stations,  and  nearly  two  thousand  Indians  "  under 
religious  instruction,  most  of  whom  were  members  of 
the  Church.  Among  the  Cherokees,  in  Georgia,  they 
had  at  the  same  date  no  less  than  seventeen  missionary 
laborers,  and  nearly  a  thousand  Church  members. 
Among  the  Choctaws  there  were  about  four  thousand 
communicants,  embracing  all  the  principal  men  of  the 
nation,  their  chiefs  and  captains."  And,  more  or  less, 
along  the  whole  frontier,  Tndian  Missions  were  estab« 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHUBCH.  481 

lished.  Meanwhile  the  destitute  fields  of  the  domestic 
work  proper  were  dotted  with  bumble  but  effective 
mission  stations,  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  these  stations  were  rapidly  passing  from 
the  missionary  list  to  the  Conference  catalogue  of  ap 
pointments  as  self  supporting  Churches. 

Melville  B.  Cox,  whose  baptism,  and  the  reception 
of  his  family  into  the  Church,  by  Kibby,  in  Maine, 
have  been  noticed,9  sailed  for  Africa,  the  first  foreign 
missionary  of  American  Methodism,  He  organized  the 
Liberia  Mission.  lie  fell  a  martyr  to  the  climate, 
but  laid  on  that  benighted  continent  the  foundations 
of  the  denomination,  never,  it  may  be  hoped,  to  be 
shaken.  About  the  same  time  some  Indians  from  the 
distant  regions  of  Oregon  arrived  in  the  states  solicit- 
ing missionaries.  Their  appeal  was  zealously  urged 
through  the  Christian  Advocate,  and  received  an  en- 
thusiastic response  from  the  Church.  Bangs,  who  bad 
been  a  leading  promoter  of  the  African  Mission,  now, 
in  co-operation  with  Fisk,  advocated  this  new  claim 
with  his  utmost  ability.  Jason  and  Daniel  Lee,  and 
Cyrus  Shepard,  were  dispatched  as  missionaries.  An 
extraordinary  scheme  of  labors  was  adopted,  involv- 
ing great  expense;  but,  writes  Bangs,  "the  projection 
of  this  important  mission  had  a  most  happy  effect 
upon  the  missionary  cause  generally.  As  the  entire 
hinds  of  the  society  up  to  this  time  had  not  ex- 
ceeded eighteen  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  as  this 
ion  must  necessarily  cost  considerable,  with  a  view 
to  augment  the  pecuniary  resources  of  the  society  a 
loud  and  urgent  call  was  made,  through  the  columns  of 
the  'Christian  Advocate  and  Journal,'  on  the  friends  of 
missions  to  'come  up  to  the  help  of  the  Lord'  in  this 
•  See  p.  43. 


482  HISTORY    OF    THE 

emergency."  As  an  evidence  of  the  beneficial  result 
of  these  movements,  the  amount  of  available  funds 
more  than  doubled  in  the  year  in  which  the  Lees  and 
Shepard  departed  to  their  field.  The  surges  of  emi- 
gration have  overwhelmed  nearly  all  that  grand  ultra- 
montane region ;  the  aborigines  are  sinking  out  of  sight 
beneath  them ;  but  the  Oregon  Mission  became  the 
nucleus  of  the  Christianity  and  civilization  of  the  new 
and  important  state  which  has  since  arisen  on  the  North 
Pacific  coast. 

Meanwhile  Fountain  C.  Pitts  was  sent  on  a  mission 
of  inquiry  to  South  America.  He  visited  Rio  Janeiro, 
Buenos  Ay  res,  Monte  Video,  and  other  places,  and  the 
Methodist  South  American  Mission  was  founded  the 
next  year  by  Justin  Spaulding.  Thus  had  the  Church 
borne  at  last  its  victorious  banner  into  the  field  of  for- 
eign missions.  It  was  to  be  tried  severely  in  these  new 
contests,  but  to  march  on  through  triumphs  and  defeats 
till  it  should  take  foremost  rank  among  denominations 
devoted  to  foreign  evangelizatiom 

The  operations  of  the  Missionary  Society  had  now 
assumed  such  importance,  and  involved  such  responsi- 
bility, as  to  justify,  in  the  judgment  of  the  General 
Conference,  the  appointment  of  a  special  officer,  or 
"  Resident  Corresponding  Secretary,"  who  could  devote 
his  whole  attention  to  them.  Of  course  the  mind  of  the 
Conference,  as  indeed  of  the  general  Church,  turned 
spontaneously  to  Bangs  as  the  man  for  such  an  office, 
and  he  was  elected  by  a  large  majority. 

He  entered  with  energy  upon  his  new  functions. 
The  first  year  of  his  secretaryship  was  signalized  by 
the  first  recognition  and  announcement,  by  the  Mis- 
sionary Society,  of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  events  in 
the  history  of  modern  missions,  the  beginning  of  the 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         483 

German  Methodist  Missions.  Professor  Nast,  a  young 
German  scholar  of  thorough  but  Rationalistic  educa- 
tion, had  been  reclaimed  by  Methodism  to  the  faith  of 
the  Reformation.  He  labored  for  some  time  among  his 
countrymen  in  Cincinnati,  and  later  on  the  Columbus 
District,  comprising  a  circuit  of  three  hundred  miles, 
and  twenty-two  appointments.  Thus  originated  the 
most  successful,  if  not  the  most  important  of  Methodist 
missions  ;  and  in  the  next  Annual  Report  of  the  society 
the  "  German  Mission,"  and  the  name  of  "  William 
Nast,"  its  founder  and  missionary,  were  first  declared 
to  the  general  Church.  German  Methodism  rapidly 
extended  through  the  nation,  to  Boston  in  the  north- 
east, to  New  Orleans  iu  the  southwest.  German  Meth- 
odist Churches,  circuits,  districts,  were  organized.  "In 
the  brief  space  of  fourteen  years,'*  says  the  historian 
of  Methodist  Missions,  "  the  German  Missions  have 
extended  all  over  the  country,  yielding  seven  thousand 
Church  members,  thirty  local  preachers,  eighty-three 
regular  mission  circuits  and  stations,  and  one  hundred 
and  eight  missionaries.  One  hundred  churches  were 
built  for  German  worship,  and  forty  parsonages.  Prim- 
itive Methodism  appears  to  have  revived  in  the  zeal  and 
simplicity  and  self  sacrificing  devotion  of  the  German 
iodists.  May  they  ever  retain  this  spirit  !  No 
T(  r  been  employed  so  specifically  adapted 
to  effect  the  conversion  of  Romanists  as  that  which  is 
immediately  connected  with  the  German  Mission  enter- 
prise. The  pastoral  visitations  of  the  preachers  bring- 
in--  them  into  immediate  contact  with  German  Catho- 
lics, their  distribution  of  Bibles  and  tracts,  their  plain, 
pointed,  and  practical  mode  of  preaching,  all  combine 
to  bring  the  truth  to  bear  upon  that  portion  of  the 
population;  and  the  result  is  the  conversion  of  hand 


484  HISTORY     OF    THE 

reds  from  the  errors  of  Romanism."  The  chief  import- 
ance of  the  German  Mission  has,  however,  been  sub- 
sequently developed.  It  has  not  only  raised  up  a 
mighty  evangelical  provision  for  the  host  of  German 
emigrants  to  the  new  world,  but  under  the  labors  of 
Jacoby,  it  has  intrenched  itself  in  the  German  "father- 
land," and  is  laying  broad  foundations  for  a  European 
German  Methodism.  German  societies  and  circuits,  a 
German  Conference,  a  "Book  Concern,"  with  its  peri- 
odicals, a  Ministerial  School,  and  all  the  other  customary 
appliances  of  evangelical  Churches,  have  been  establish- 
ed ;  and,  in  our  day,  this  Teutonic  Methodism  comprises, 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  nearly  thirty  thousand 
communicants,  and  nearly  three  hundred  missionaries. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  trace  in  detail  the  further 
outspread  of  this  great  interest,  especially  under  the 
successful  administration  of  its  ablest  secretary,  John 
P.  Durbin,  nor  is  it  appropriate  to  the  limits  of  the 
present  work.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  annual  re- 
ceipts of  the  society,  which,  the  year  before  his  ad 
ministration  began,  amounted  to  about  $104,000,  have 
risen  to  more  than  $700,000  ;  and  that,  besides  its 
very  extensive  domestic  work,  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  has  now  missions  in  China,  India,  Africa,  Bul- 
garia, Germany,  Switzerland,  Denmark,  Norway,  Swe- 
den, and  South  America.  Its  missions,  foreign  and 
domestic,  have  1,059  circuits  and  stations,  1,128  paid 
laborers,  (preachers  and  assistants,)  and  105,675  com- 
municants. The  funds  contributed  to  its  treasury,  from 
the  beginning  amount  to  about  $8,000,000.  About 
350  of  the  missionaries  preach  in  the  German  and 
Scandinavian  languages,  and  more  than  30,000  of  the 
communicants  are  German  and  Scandinavian.  The 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  had,  in  addition  to 


METHODIST    ELM  SCO  PAL     CHURCH.         485 

these  before  the  Rebellion,  missions  in  China,  among  our 
foreign  settlers,  among  the  American  Indians,  and  the 
southern  slaves.  About  three  hundred  and  sixty  of  its 
preachers  were  enrolled  as  missionaries. 

American,  like  British  Methodism,  has  become  thor- 
oughly imbued  with  the  apostolic  idea  of  foreign  and 
universal  evangelization.  With  both  bodies  it  is  no 
longer  an  incidental  or  secondary  attribute,  but  is  in- 
wrought into  their  organic  ecclesiastical  systems.  It 
has  deepened  and  widened  till  it  has  become  the  great 
characteristic  of  modern  Methodism,  raising  it  from  a 
revival  of  vital  Protestantism,  chiefly  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  to  a  world-wide  system  of  Christianization, 
which  has  reacted  on  all  the  great  interests  of  its  Anglo- 
Saxon  field,  has  energized  and  ennobled  most  of  its 
other  characteristics,  and  would  seem  to  pledge  to  it  a 
universal  and  perpetual  sway  in  the  earth.  Taken  in 
connection  with  the  London  and  Church  Missionary 
Societies,  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  the 
London  Tract  Society,  to  all  of  which  Methodism  gave 
the  originating  impulse,  and  the  Sunday-school  institu- 
tion, which  it  was  the  first  to  adopt  as  an  agency  of  the 
Church,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  has  been  trans- 
forming the  character  of  English  Protestantism  and  the 
moral  prospects  of  the  world.  Its  missionary  develop- 
ment has  preserved  its  primitive  energy.  According  to 
the  usual  history  of  religious  bodies,  if  not  indeed  by  a 
law  of  the  human  mind,  its  early  heroic  character  would 
have  passed  away  by  its  domestic  success,  and  the  ces- 
sation of  the  novelty  and  trials  of  its  early  periods;  but 
b}  throwing  itself  out  upon  all  the  world,  and  especially 
upon  the  strongest  citadels  of  paganism,  it  has  perpet- 
uated its  original  militant  spirit,  and  opened  for  itself  a 
heroic  career,  which  need  end  only  with  the  universal 


4.86  HISTORY    OF    THE 

triumph  of  Christianity.  English  Methodism  was  con- 
sidered, at  the  death  of  its  founder,  a  marvelous  fact  in 
British  history ;  but  to-day  the  Wesleyan  missions  alone 
comprise  more  than  twice  the  number  of  the  regular 
preachers  enrolled  in  the  English  Minutes  in  the  year  of 
Wesley's  death,  and  nearly  twice  as  many  communi- 
cants as  the  Minutes  then  reported  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  which  had  been  reached  by  Methodism.  The 
latest  reported  number  of  missionary  communicants  in 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  equals  nearly  one  half 
the  whole  membership  of  the  Church  in  the  year  (1819) 
before  our  narrative  closes — the  year  in  which  the  Mis- 
sionary Society  was  founded — and  is  nearly  double  that 
with  which  the  denomination  closed  the  last  century, 
after  more  than  thirty  years  of  labors  and  struggles. 

Such,  then,  were  some  of  the  results  with  which 
Methodism  was  pregnant,  by  the  development  of  its 
practical  system,  at  the  period  of  its  history  which  we 
have  reached,  for  all  these  great  measures  were  initiated, 
as  has  been  shown,  before  1820.  Nor  are  these  all  the 
results  of  those  measures,  for  Methodism  was  yet  a  unit, 
save  the  comparatively  limited  schisms  of  O'Kelly  (in 
our  day  extinct)  and  the  African  Methodists.  All  the 
existing  Methodist  bodies  of  the  country  have  sprung 
from  it,  and  their  combined  strength  alone  properly 
shows  the  aggregate  result.  Most  of  them  have  Book 
Concerns,  periodicals,  Sunday  schools,  missions,  acade- 
mies, and  colleges,  all  primarily  the  product  of  the 
Church  of  1820,  as  of  that  of  1766.  Half  the  Method- 
ism  of  the  country  stands  to  day  beyond  the  eccle- 
siastical limits  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  but 
it  all  legitimately  belongs  to  the  prospective  view  ol 
our  present  standpoint. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         487 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

ACTUAL   AND   PROSPECTIVE   RESULTS:    1820. 

Statistical  Results  of  tbe  Period  —  Comparative  Statistics  —  Subse- 
quent Results  —  Aggregate  Statistics  of  the  different  Methodist 
Bodies  of  the  United  States  —  Relative  Importance  of  Methodism  in 
Modern  Protestantism  —  The  Problem  of  its  Success. 

We  may  well  pause  again,  before  recording  the  con- 
cluding facts  of  these  pages,  to  consider  the  actual  and 
prospective  results,  and  the  causes  of  the  extraordinary, 
the  almost  incredible,  success  which  we  have  been  con- 
templating, and  especially  to  view  it  in  its  more  legiti- 
mate form  as  presented  by  the  aggregate  results  of  the 
various  Methodist  bodies  which  have  sprung  from  the 
parent  Church. 

The  statistical  exhibit  of  Methodism  in  1820  aston- 
ished  not  only  the  Church,  but  the  country.  It  was 
evident  that  a  great  religious  power  had,  after  little 
more  than  half  a  century,  been  permanently  established 
in  the  nation,  not  only  with  a  practical  system  and 
auxiliary  agencies  of  unparalleled  efficiency,  but  sus- 
tained and  propelled  forward  by  hosts  of  the  common 
people,  the  best  bone  and  sinew  of  the  Republic— and 
that  all  other  religious  denominations,  however  ante- 
cedent, were  thereafter  to  take  second  rank  to  it,  nu- 
merically at  least, a  fact  of  which  Methodists  themselves 
could  not  fail  to  be  vividly  conscious,  and  which  might 
have  critical  effect  "ii  that  humble  devotion  to  religious 
life  and  work  which  had  mule  them  thus  far  successful 
Their  Leaders  >aw  the  peril,  and  incessantly  admonished 


±88  HISTORY    OF    THE 

tnem  to  "  rejoice  with  trembling."  The  aggregate  re- 
turns show  that  there  were  now  273,858  members  in 
the  Church,  with  between  nine  and  ten  hundred  itin- 
erant preachers.1  In  the  sixteen  years  of  this  period 
there  was  a  gain  of  no  less  than  158,447  members,  and 
of  more  than  500  preachers.  In  the  twenty  years  of  the 
century  the  increase  was  208,964  members,  and  617 
preachers  ;  the  former  had  much  more  than  quadrupled, 
and  the  latter  much  more  than  trebled. 

The  first  native  American  Methodist  preacher  was 
still  alive,  and  was  to  see  both  this  large  membership 
and  its  ministry  more  than  doubled. 

The  comparative  statistics  of  Methodism  (if  they 
may  be  given  without  the  appearance  of  invidiousness) 
showed  its  peculiar  energy ;  its  communicants  already 
lacked  but  about  13,000  to  be  equal  to  those  of  its  elder 
sister,  the  Regular  Baptist  Church,  which  dates  its 
American  origin  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter 
before  it,  and,  in  one  decade  later,  they  were  to  be 
nearly  a  hundred  thousand  in  advance  of  them.  They 
were  already  much  more  than  double  the  number  of 
those  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  more  than  eleven 
times  those  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.2     In  a 

1  An  error  in  the  Minutes  of  1820  (vol.  i,  p.  346)  is  corrected  by  the 
Minutes  of  1821,  (ibid.,  p.  366.)  The  Minutes  cannot  be  followed  for 
the  aggregates  of  any  given  calendar  year,  for  the  reason  that  the  re- 
turns of  the  Western  Conferences,  printed  in  any  given  3'ear,  were  made 
up  the  preceding  year.  I  correct  this  defect  in  the  estimate  in  my 
text.  Bangs  followed  the  Minutes  without  this  modification;  Goss's 
"  Statistical  History"  has  followed  Bangs.  The  preachers  for  1820  are 
{riven  in  the  Minutes  as  904,  but  this  includes  the  preachers  of  the 
West  only  lor  1819.  The  Minutes  of  1821  give  the  ministry  as  977; 
this  includes  the  western  preachers  of  1820,  but  also  those  of  the  East 
down  to  the  end  of  the  spring  (and  one  Conference  beyond  it)  of  1821. 
The  statement  in  the  text  is  sufficiently  precise. 

2  See  Goss's  tahles,   "Statistical  History,"  etc.,  chap,  v;   but  the 

reader  must  qualify  them  according  to  my  preceding  note. 
(t 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         489 

few  years  more  Methodism  was  to  advance  to  the  front 
Df  the  Protestantism  of  the  new  world,  and  thencefor- 
ward, for  good  or  evil,  lead  its  van  with  continually 
increasing  ascendency.  It  had  advanced,  by  this  year, 
to  the  front  of  the  Methodist  world,  with  a  majority  ox 
1,700  over  the  parent  British  denomination. 

It  had  by  1820  a  well-defined  ecclesiastical  geography,1 
covering  all  the  settled  parts  of  the  Republic  and  Can- 
ada, with  its  eleven  immense  Conferences,  subdivided 
into  sixty-four  presiding  elders'  districts,  and  more  than 
five  hundred  circuits,  many  of  the  latter  full  five  hund- 
red miles  in  range ;  and,  as  has  been  shown,  it  now  pos- 
sessed, in  more  or  less  organized  form,  nearly  a  complete 
series  of  secondary  or  auxiliary  agencies  of  usefulness, 
literary,  educational,  and  missionary.  It  seemed  thor- 
oughly equipped,  and  had  only  to  move  forward. 

The  wonderful  success,  thus  far  characteristic  of  the 
denomination,  was  to  have  no  serious  reaction  in  the 
remainder  of  its  history  down  to  our  day.  Great  as 
that  success  now  appears,  it  was  to  become  compara- 
tively small  in  contrast  with  the  statistics  of  the  cen- 
tenary jubilee  in  1866.  On  this  memorable  occasion 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  alone  was  to  see  a  full 
million  of  communicants  within  its  pale,  and  in  its  con- 
gregations four  millions  of  the  population  of  the  Repub- 
lic. But  it  had  become  several  bands  ;  yet  all  were  iden- 
tical, save  in  some  points  of  ecclesiastical  polity.  Its 
first  assembly,  in  Embury's  private  house,  had  multiplied 
to  thousands  and  tens  of*  thousands  of  (-"ngregatimi- ; 
its  lirst  chapel,  of  1768,  t<>  at  least  twenty  thousand 
choi  idding   the  continent    from   the   northern- 

most settlements  of  Canada  t«»  tli<-  Gulf  of  Mexico,  from 
th'-  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  h-  first  t  wo  classes  of  l  7m;, 
rec  >rding  rix  or  Beven  members  each,  were  now  rcpre- 


490  HISTORY    OF    THE 

sented  by  2,000,000  communicants;3  its  first  congrega- 
tion of  five  persons  by  about  8,000,000  of  people ;  its 
three  local  preachers,  Embury,  Strawbriclge,  and  Webb, 
who  founded  the  whole  cause,  by  at  least  15,000  success- 
ors in  their  own  order  of  the  ministry;  its  first  two 
itinerants,  Boardman  and  Pilmoor,  who  reached  the 
new  world  in  1769,  by  about  14,000  traveling  preachers; 
its  first  educational  institution,  opened  in  17S7,  by  nearly 
200  colleges  and  academies,  with  an  army  of  32,000 
students  ;  its  first  Sunday-school,  started  by  Asbury  in 
1786,  by  at  least  20,000  schools,  200,000  teachers,  and 
over  1,500,000  scholars  ;  its  first  periodical  organ,  begun 
in  1818,  after  a  previous  failure,  by  thirty  periodical 
publications,  the  best  patronized,  and  among  the  most 
effective  in  the  nation ;  its  first  Book  Concern,  with  its 
borrowed  capital  of  $600,  begun  in  1789,  by  four  or  five 
similar  institutions  in  the  United  States  and  Canada. 
The  festivities  of  the  centenary  jubilee  of  the  denomina- 
tion were  to  be  tempered,  as  well  as  enhanced,  by  the 
startling  fact  that  it  bore  the  chief  responsibility  of 
Protestantism  in  the  new  world,  its  aggregate  member- 
ship being  about  half  the  Protestant  communicants  of 
the  country,  its  congregations  between  one  fifth  and 
one  fourth  of  the  national  population;  and  that,  if  the 
usual  estimate,  by  geographers,  of  the  Protestant  popu- 
lation of  the  globe  (80,000,000)  is  correct,  American 
Methodism,  with  its  eight  millions  of  people,  is  respon- 
sible for  one  tenth  (with  general  Methodism  for  one 
seventh)  the  interest  and  fate  of  the  Protestant  world. 

The  influence  of  this  vast  ecclesiastical  force  on  the 
general   progress    of  the   new    world    can    neither   be 

9 1  aive  the  aggregates  of  the  different  Methodist  hodies  in  America. 
The  details  can  be  found  in  the  "Centenary  Book,"  heretofore  men 
tioned,  eited  mostly  from  oiHcial  sources. 


METHODIST     EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        491 

doubted  nor  measured.  It  is  generally  conceded  that 
it  lias  been  the  most  energetic  religious  element  in  the 
social  development  of  the  continent.  With  its  devoted 
and  enterprising  people  dispersed  through  the  whole 
population ;  its  thousands  of  laborious  itinerant  preach- 
ers, and  still  larger  hosts  of  local  preachers  and  ex- 
hort ers;  its  unequaled  publishing  agencies  and  powerful 
periodicals,  from  the  Quarterly  Review  to  the  child's 
paper ;  its  hundreds  of  colleges  and  academies ;  its  hund- 
reds of  thousands  of  Sunday-school  instructors;  its  de- 
votion to  the  lower  and  most  needy  classes,  and  its 
animated  modes  of  worship  and  religious  labor,  there 
can  hardly  be  a  question  that  it  has  been  a  mighty,  if 
not  the  mightiest,  agent  in  the  maintenance  and  spread 
of  Protestant  Christianity  over  these  lands. 

The  problem  (so  called)  of  this  unequaled  success  has 
been  the  subject  of  no  little  discussion;  but  we  may 
well  hesitate  to  admit  that  there  is  any  such  problem. 
I  have  failed  to  interpret  aright  the  whole  preceding 
record,  if  it  does  not  present,  on  almost  every  page 
intelligible  reasons  of  its  extraordinary  events.  A  prin- 
cipal error  in  most  of  the  discussions  of  this  alleged  prob- 
lem has  been  the  attempt  to  find  some  one  fact  or  reason 
as  its  explanation.  The  problem  (if  such  it  may  be  ad- 
mitted to  be)  is  complex,  and  no  single  fact  can  suffice  for 
its  solution.  Doubtless  the  theology  of  Methodism  has 
had  a  potent  influence  on  its  history — its  Anninianism, 
it-  doctrines  of  Regeneration,  the  Witness  of  the  Spirit, 
and  Sanctification.  But  it  should  be  borne  in  miud  that 
Cahiuistic  Methodism  was,  during  most  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, as  energetic  as  Arminian  Methodism.  It  is  as 
much  so  to  day  in  Wales,  where  it  presents  the  best 
example  of  Sublet h  observance  and  Church  attendance 

in  the  Christian  world.     Whitefield  was  an  ardent  Cal- 
D— 32  * 


492  HISTORY    OF    THE 

vinist,  but  was  he  less  a  Methodist,  less  a  flaming  evan- 
gelist, than  Wesley  ?  Moravianism  shared  the  theology 
of  Methodism,  especially  its  most  vital,  most  experi- 
mental doctrines  ;  but  not  its  prosperity.  Indisputably 
one  of  the  greatest  responsibilities  of  the  denomination, 
for  the  future,  is  the  maintenance  and  diffusion  of  its 
theology ;  but  this  cannot  be  assigned  as  the  single,  or 
the  special,  cause  of  its  success. 

The  legislative  genius  of  Wesley,  the  practical  system 
of  Methodism,  has  been  pronounced  the  chief  cause  of  its 
progress.  It  has  been,  doubtless,  hardly  less  important 
than  its  theology  ;  we  have  seen  its  power  throughout 
this  whole  narrative.  But  neither  of  them  explains  the 
problem,  for  neither  of  them,  nor  both  together,  could 
have  succeeded  without  something  else.  The  whole 
Methodistic  system,  introduced  into  some  of  our  com- 
paratively inert  modern  denominations,  could  only  result 
in  a  prodigious  failure.  Could  they  tear  up  their  min- 
isterial families  by  the  roots  every  two  or  three  years, 
and  scatter  them  hither  and  thither?  Oould  they  drive 
out  their  comfortably  domiciled  pastors  to  wander  over 
the  land  without  certain  homes  or  abiding  places, 
preaching  night  and  day,  year  in  and  year  out  ?  Could 
they  throw  their  masses  of  people  into  class-meetings 
for  weekly  inspection  respecting  their  religious  prog- 
ress or  declension  ?  The  system,  momentous  as  it  has 
been,  presupposes  prior  and  infinitely  more  potential 
conditions. 

If  we  must  narrow  the  explanation  to  the  fewest  pos 
sible  conditions,  it  may  be  said  that  there  have  been  two 
chief  causes  of  the  success  of  Methodism,  one  primary, 
the  other  proximate. 

First,  it  was  a  necessity  of  the  times,  a  providential 
provision  for  the  times.     The  government  of  God  over 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         ^93 

our  world  is  a  unit ;  the  history  of  his  Church  is  a  unit ; 
and  however  unable  we  may  still  be  to  correlate  its 
divers  parts,  yet  in  ages  to  come,  perhaps  after  hund- 
reds of  ages,  the  world  will  behold  its  perfect  symme- 
try. History,  if  not  as  much  under  the  sway  of  laws 
as  physics,  is  nevertheless  a  providential  process.  The 
apostolic  ministry  founded  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  the 
world,  but  the  apostles  themselves  predicted  the  rise  of 
Antichrist  and  the  great  ''falling  away."  The  medie- 
val night,  a  thousand  years  long,  followed ;  the  Renais- 
sance, with  the  Reformation,  began  the  modern  history 
of  the  world.  The  Reformation  proclaimed  the  right 
and  responsibility  of  the  individual  conscience  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  word  of  God,  and  reproclaimed 
the  apostolic  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  It  went 
far,  if  not  as  far  as  it  might  have  gone;  but  in  the 
eighteenth  century  its  progressive  power  seemed  about 
exhausted.  It  had  made  no  great  territorial  advance- 
ment after  about  its  first  half  century,  and  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  the  Historical  Criticism  and  Rationalism 
arose,  and,  with  the  prevailing  popular  demoralization, 
threatened,  as  Burnet  affirms,  not  only  the  Anglican 
Church,  but  "the  whole  Reformation."  It  had  become 
necessary  that  some  new  development  of  Christianity 
should  take  place.  It  was  a  providential  necessity,  and 
God  provided  for  it.  At  this  very  period  of  apparent 
danger  the  world  was  in  the  travail  of  a  new  birth. 
The  American  and  French  Revolutions  were  drawing 
near.  The  mo-t  important  phases  of  the  civilized  world 
were  to  be  transformed     9  amorce,  govern- 

ment, religion  were  to  pass  into  a  new  cycle,  perhaps 
their  final  cycle.     The  revolution  in  religion  was  to  be 
as  conspicuous  as  any  other  change  in  the  grand  proa 
The  rights  of  conscience  wen  more  fully  devel 


-194  HISTORY    OF    THE 

oped ;  the  separation  of  the  Church  from  the  State,  am] 
the  "  voluntary  principle,"  were  to  he  introduced.  For 
the  first  time,  in  recorded  history,  was  about  to  be  seen 
the  spectacle  of  a  great  nation  without  a  sstate  religion. 
Medieval  dogmatism  was  to  be  more  fully  thrown  iuto 
abeyance ;  ecclesiasticism  and  hierarchism  to  receive  a 
shock  under  which  they  might  still  reel  for  a  while,  but 
only  to  fall,  sooner  or  later,  to  their  proper  subordina- 
tion or  desuetude.  The  permanent,  essential  principles, 
not  so  much  of  theology  (so  called)  as  of  religion,  were 
to  revive  with  the  power  of  their  apostolic  promulga- 
tion. Missions,  Sunday  schools,  Bible  societies,  popular 
religious  literature,  all  those  powers  which  I  have  af- 
firmed to  have  arisen  with  Methodism,  were  to  come 
into  activity  in  the  religious  world  co-ordinately  with 
the  new  energies  of  the  secular  world.  The  Church,  in 
fine,  was  anew  to  become  a  living,  working  organism, 
and  to  be  not  only  the  Church  of  the  present,  but, 
probably,  the  Church  of  the  future.  The  old  questions 
of  rationalistic  biblical  criticism  and  of  ecclesiasticism 
were  not  to  be  immediately  laid,  but  they  were  to  be- 
come only  occasional  incidents  to  the  Christian  move- 
ment of  the  new  age.  Colenso  and  the  Essayists,  Pusey 
and  the  Oxford  Papal  tendencies,  were  yet  to  appear, 
but  not  seriously  to  obstruct  the  march  of  evangelical 
truth.  Methodism  had  its  birth  at  the  date  of  Rational- 
ism in  Germany.  The  biblical  criticism  of  Colenso  and 
the  Essayists  was  anticipated  in  the  writings  of  Boling- 
broke  and  other  English  authors  before  Methodism  had 
fairly  started.  That  criticism  is  much  older.  Spinoza's 
Politico-Theological  Treatise  is  almost  entirely  made 
up  of  it  —  in  many  respects  a  much  abler  discussion 
than  modern  English  doubt  has  produced.  We  know 
not  how  far  modern  critical  skepticism  may  yet  gc ;  we 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         495 

know  not  what,  if  any,  demonstrations  it  may  reach  ; 
but  one  thing  we  absolutely  know,  that  the  ethical 
parity  which  -peaks  in  the  gospel,  the  spiritual  life 
which  filled  the  primitive  Church  with  saints,  heroes, 
martyrs,  and  whi<  h  is  now  filling  the  Christian  world 
with  good  works,  sanctified  homes,  and  peaceful  death- 
beds, can  never  be  overthrown;  that  against  a  living, 
loving,  working  Church  the  gates  of  hell  can  never  pre- 
vail ;  and  that  the  very  existence  of  such  a  Church  pre- 
supposes the  coexistence  of  all  essential  theology.  The 
production  of  such  a  Church  was  the  special  providen- 
tial appointment  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  "  continuous 
revival"  of  spiritual  life,  as  Wesley  was  able  to  say  after 
fifty  years,  in  the  old  world  ;  a  still  continued  "  revival," 
as  we  are  able  to  say  to-day,  after  a  hundred  years,  in 
the  new  world.  It"  we  may  not  venture  to  affirm  that 
Methodism,  distinctively  so  called,  is  tliis  modern  devel- 
opment of  Christianity,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say,  with 
Isaac  Taylor,  that  the  religious  movement  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  called  Methodism — Calviuistic  and  Ar- 
minian  —  is  its  true  historical  exponent  —  "the  event 
whence  the  religious  epoch  now  current  must  date  its 
commencement." 

Such  was  the  providential  origin  of  Methodism,  such 
the  primary  condition  of  its  success.  But  what  wa-  it- 
other  chief,  or  proximate  cause? 

The  "Holy  Hub"'  was  founded  at  Oxford,  and  the 
title  of  Methodism  given  to  it  in  1729,  ten  years  before 
the  recognized  epoch  of  the  religious  movement  which 
it  was  to  introduce.  The  Wesleys,  Whitefield,  and 
other  mighty  meu  were  then  or  BOOB  after  in  it ;  but 
they  had  no  notable  success,  for  they  had  not  yet  re- 
ceived "power  from  on  high."  The  Wesleyfl  came  to 
America,  and  labored  nV'hfully  here,  but  still  without 


496  HISTORY    OF    THE 

success,  and  they  returned  home  defeated.  Something 
was  yet  needed.  They  preached  and  suffered  in  En- 
gland, hut  still  without  appreciable  effect.  As  Meth- 
odism was  to  be  the  next  great  stage  of  religious  prog- 
ress, after  the  Reformation,  it  was  to  have  affinity  with 
the  Reformation.  The  salient  doctrinal  fact  of  the 
Reformation  was  justification  by  faith.  Wesley  had 
been  feeling  after  this  as  in  the  dark  during  all  these 
ten  years ;  but  now,  by  the  very  writings  in  which 
Luther  had  declared  it  at  the  Reformation,  he  was  to 
find  it.  On  the  24th  of  May,  1738,  sitting  in  a  little 
religious  meeting  in  Aldersgate-street,  and  listening  to 
the  reading  of  Luther's  preface  to  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  the  great  truth  flashed  upon  his  soul.  "I 
felt,"  he  writes,  "my  heart  strangely  warmed;  an  as- 
surance was  given  me  that  He  had  taken  away  my  sins, 
even  mine,  and  saved  me  from  the  law  of  >  sin  and 
death."  Here  is  the  proximate  cause  of  all  the  Meth- 
odism in  the  world  to-day,  for  this  was  the  "  dispensa- 
tion of  the  Spirit,"  which  has  since  continued  in  a  bap- 
tism of  fire  upon  the  Churches.  On  that  memorable 
night  genuine  Methodism  had  its  birth.  What  would 
have  been  Wesley's  theological  opinions  without  this 
quickening  of  the  Spirit  ? — Tenets  only  of  the  brain, 
exciting  him  to  unavailing  struggles,  as  they  had  for 
ten  years.  What  his  practical  system,  had  he  even 
been  able  to  devise  it,  but  a  wretched  failure,  from 
which  he  and  his  people  would  soon  have  recoiled,  as 
from  a  burden  intolerable  to  be  borne  ?  This  new  spir- 
itual life,  this  "  strange  "  warmth  of  the  heart,  made  hi* 
theology  vital,  his  system  practicable  ;  gave  power  and 
demonstration  to  his  preaching,  and  spread  like  conta- 
gion through  his  assemblies.  It  intoned  their  hymns, 
and    kindled    their    prayer-meetings,    band-meetings, 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  41)7 

classes,  and  love  feasts.  The  manner  of  its  inspiration, 
the  time  of  its  experience,  its  effects  and  evidences,  and 
the  extent  to  which  it  could  be  perfected,  became  the 
themes  of  discourse  in  their  meetings  and  in  their  fam- 
iliar converse  all  through  the  British  realm.  Conver- 
sion, the  Witness  of  the  Spirit,  and  Sanctification,  were 
but  its  corollary  truths.  It  inspired  men  to  enter  the 
ministry,  it  inspired  their  preaching,  and  produced  the 
peculiar  power  of  their  preaching,  and  of  all  their  de- 
nominational methods,  as  witnessed  throughout  the 
world.  Without  it  almost  everything  else  that  is  char- 
acteristically Methodistic  would  have  been  not  only 
ineffective,  but  impracticable.  The  multitudes,  the 
very  mobs,  recognized  this  power  of  personal  religion, 
this  divine  power  and  glory  of  the  regenerated  man  in 
the  representatives  of  the  new  movement ;  they  saw  it 
in  their  countenances,  in  their  tears,  and  heard  it  in 
their  tones.  It  was  the  magical  power  by  which  they 
controlled  riots,  and  led  persecutors  in  weeping  proces- 
sions from  the  highways  and  market  places  to  the  altars 
of  their  humble  chapels.  If  it  be  inquired  what  has 
been  the  one  chief  force  in  the  success  of  Methodism, 
and  what  is  the  chief  power  for  its  future  success,  I 
reply,  it  is  this  "  power  from  on  high,r  this  "  unction 
from  the  Holy  One." 

Such,  I  think,  were  the  primary  and  proximate  condi- 
tions of  the  success  of  Methodism.  There  were  also 
many  others  doubtless  :  its  catholicity ;  the  subordina- 
tion, not  to  say  insignificance,  to  which  it  reduced  all 
exclusive  or  arrogant  ecclesiastic  pretensions;  the  im- 
portance which  it  gave  to  good  and  charitable  works 
while  insisting  on  a  profound  personal,  if  not  a  mystic 
piety;  the  unprecedented  co-operation  of  the  laity  with 
the  clergy  in  at  least   religions   labors,  which  it  estab- 


498  HISTORY    OF    THE 

listed ;  the  activity  of  women  in  its  social  devotions ; 
these,  and  still  more. 

I  mention  further  but  one,  and  particularly  because  it 
affords  an  important  admonitory  lesson — the  character 
of  its  chiefs.  And  I  mean  not  merely  their  greatness. 
They  were  indeed  great  men,  as  the  world  is  beginning 
to  acknowledge :  Whitefield,  the  greatest  of  modern 
preachers;  Wesley,  the  greatest  of  religious  organizers; 
Asbury,  unquestionably  the  greatest  character  in  the 
ecclesiastical  history  of  this  hemisphere  judged  by  the 
results  of  his  labors.  But  it  was  not  so  much  by  their 
great  abilities,  as  by  qualities  in  which  all  may  share, 
that  they  made  Methodism  what  it  is.  Its  leaders  were 
its  exemplars,  and  that  fact  expresses  more  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  its  history  than  any  other  except  that  of  the 
"baptism  from  on  high."  There  is  no  human  power 
above  that  of  character.  The  character,  not  the  genius, 
of  Washington  has  made  him  chief  among  the  military 
or  civic  sons  of  men.  The  character  of  a  military  leader 
can  make  a  whole  army  an  array  of  heroes  or  a  melee 
of  cowards.  The  army  of  the  Shenandoah  was  rolling 
back  shattered  and  hopeless,  but  when  its  chief  arrived 
on  his  foaming  steed,  after  that  long  and  solitary  ride, 
it  stood  forth  again  invincible ;  the  drawing  of  his  single 
sword  before  it,  flashed  lightning  along  all  its  bay- 
onets and  banners,  and  it  dealt  back  the  blow  which 
sent  the  enemy  reeling  irrecoverably  to  destruction. 
The  greatest  of  talents  is  character,  and  character  is  the 
most  attainable  of  talents. 

Had  John  Wesley,  when  his  cause  was  somewhat 
established,  retired  from  his  self-sacrificing  labors,  and 
acted  the  dignified,  well-endowed  prelate  in  City  Road 
parsonage,  his  whole  system  would  soon  have  fallen 
through.     By  traveling  more,  laboring  more,  and  suf 

d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         499 

fering  more  than  any  of  his  preachers,  he  kept  them  all 
heroically  traveling,  laboring,  suffering.  Asbury  kept 
Methodism  astir  throughout  this  nation  by  hastening 
from  Georgia  to  Massachusetts  on  horseback,  yearly,  for 
nearly  half  a  century,  preaching  daily.  None  of  his 
preachers  exceeded  him  in  even  the  humblest  labors  of 
the  ministry.  His  power  was  military,  and  he  used  it 
with  military  energy  ;  but,  as  has  been  shown,  he  im- 
posed on  the  ministry  no  task  that  he  did  not  himself 
exemplify.  Under  his  command  the  Conferences  moved 
as  columns  in  the  field  of  battle,  for  they  knew  that 
iheir  leader  would  be  in  the  thickest  fight,  would  be 
chief  in  suffering  and  labor  as  in  authority  and  honor. 
Asbury's  daily  life  was  a  challenge  to  the  humblest  of 
them  to  endure  all  things.  It  became  a  point  of  chiv- 
alric  honor  amono;  them  to  evade  no  labor  or  suffering ; 
they  consented  to  be  tossed  from  Baltimore  to  Boston, 
from  Boston  to  beyond  the  Alleghanies.  How  would 
all  this  have  been  changed  if  Asbury,  at  his  episcopal 
ordination,  had  housed  himself  in  Baltimore,  reposing 
on  his  dignity,  and  issuing  his  commands,  without  ex- 
emplifying them  !  The  Church  should  understand,  then, 
that  its  great  men  must  be  great  workers  in  whatever 
sphere  they  occupy  ;  that  this  is  a  requisite  of  the  age, 
and  has  always  been  a  requisite  of  Methodism.  An 
itinerant  superintendency  or  episcopacy  has  ever  been 
a  favorite  idea  of  its  people.  They  have  instinctively 
perceived  its  importance ,  and  the  founders  of  the  Church 
declared  in  its  constitutional  law  that  the  General  Con- 
ference shall  not  "change  or  alter  any  part  or  rule  of 
our  government  so  as  .  .  .  to  destroy  the  plan  of  our 
itinerant  superintendency."  The  unity  of  the  denomi- 
nation, the  fellowship  of  the  Churches,  their  co-operation 
in  great  common  undertakings,  and  the  Belf  sacrificing 


500  HISTORY     OF    THE 

spirit  of  the  ministry  generally,  have  been  largely  at- 
tributable to  this  fact  of  their  system,  a  fact  peculiar  to 
Methodism  among  Episcopal  Churches. 

With  changes  of  time  must  come  changes  of  policy,  if 
not  changes  of  what  have  been  deemed  fundamental 
opinions.  Methodism  has,  through  most  of  its  history, 
been  taking  on  new  adaptations.  Unrestricted  by  any 
dogmatism  whatever  in  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  less 
restricted,  as  we  have  seen,  by  theological  creeds,  than 
any  other  evangelical  Church,  it  stands  unshackled  for 
its  future  career.  That  it  will  change,  that  it  has 
changed,  cannot  be  doubted ;  but  devoting  itself,  as  it 
has  been  increasingly,  to  the  elevation  of  its  people, 
to  education,  literature,  liberty,  civil  and  religious,  mis- 
sions, the  amelioration  of  its  own  acknowledged  defects, 
and  all  charitable  works,  there  would  seem  to  be,  not 
only  possible,  but  feasible  to  it,  a  destiny  hardly  less 
grand  than  its  history. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.  501 


CHAPTER  XT. 


REVIEW   OF    THE    PERIOD,  1804-1820:    DEATHS    OF 


Deaths  of  Preachers — Whatcoat's  Character  and  Death  — His  Grave  — 
Coke's  Death,  and  Burial  in  the  Indian  Ocean  —  Asbury's  Estimate 
of  him  —  His  great  Services  and  Character  —  Asbury  —  His  Character 
—  Last  Scenes  of  his  Life  —  Funeral  Ceremonies  at  the  General  Con- 
ference of  181G  —  Jesse  Lee's  Death  —  His  Character  —  His  Defeat  as 
Candidate  for  the  Episcopate  —  His  historical  Rank  —  Conclusion. 

In^  casting  a  glance  back  over  these  sixteen  years, 
so  replete  with  great  characters  and  achievements,  we 
are  reminded  of  events  which  might  strike  us  as  ca- 
tastrophes were  it  not  that  they  were  in  the  order  of 
Divine  Providence,  and  therefore  in  "  due  season,"  and 
illustrations  of  the  Methodistic  maxim  that  "  God  calls 
home  his  workmen,  but  carries  on  his  work."  Be- 
sides the  hosts  of  men,  many  of  them  prominent,  who 
fell  by  death  in  the  ministerial  field,  and  whose  decease 
has  been  noticed,  TVhatcoat,  Coke,  Asbury,  and  Lee 
have  all  disappeared  from  the  scene  as  we  close  the 
period. 

I  have  heretofore  sketched  the  life  and  character  of 
Wnatcoat  as  fully  as  the  scanty  recorded  data  will 
admit.1  He  sustained  his  episcopal  functions  with  con- 
tinual disability,  from  chronic  disease,  but  was  ever  in 
motion  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  the  Church 
North,  South,  East,  and  West.  His  beautiful  character 
preached  more  effectually  than  his  sermons.     Peculiarly 

»  See  vol.  ii,  pp.  107,  168,  ..»].  Hi,  p.  To;  vol.  iv,  pp.  04,  113. 


602  HISTORY    OF    THE 

simple,  sober,  but  serene  and  cheerful,  living  as  well  as 
teaching  his  favorite  doctrine  of  sanctification,  extremely- 
prudent  in  his  administration,  pathetically  impressive  in 
discourse,  and  "  made  perfect  through  sufferings,"  he  is 
pre-eminently  the  saint  in  the  primitive  calendar  of 
American  Methodism.  In  November,  1806,  Asbury 
wrote  to  Fleming  :  "  Dear  Father  Whatcoat,  after  thir- 
teen weeks'  illness — gravel,  stone,  dysentery  combined 
— died,  a  martyr  to  pain,  m  all  patience  and  resignation 
to  the  will  of  God.  May  we,  like  him,  if  we  live  long 
live  well,  and  die  like  him." 

He  had  "  finished  his  sixth  episcopal  tour  through  the 
work  after  his  consecration,"  says  his  biographer,2  "  or 
near  that,  and,  after  great  suffering,  he  got  an  honor- 
able discharge  from  the  Captain  of  his  salvation,  and  by 
his  permission  came  in  from  his  post,  which  he  bad  faith- 
fully kept  for  fifty  years."  He  took  refuge  at  the  home 
of  Senator  Bassett,  Dover,  Del.,  where  he  died,  "  in  the 
full  assurance  of  faith,"  say  the  Minutes,  July  5,  1806.3 
"  He  professed,"  add  his  brethren,  "  the  justifying  and 
sanctifying  grace  of  God,  and  all  that  knew  him  well 
might  say,  If  a  man  on  earth  possessed  these  blessings, 
surely  it  was  Richard  Whatcoat." 

Nearly  a  year  later  Asbury  reached  Dover,  and  over 
his  tomb  declared  that  he  aknew  Richard  Whatcoat, 
from  his  own  age  of  fourteen  to  sixty-two  years,  most  in- 
timately— his  holy  manner  of  life,  in  duty  at  all  times, 
in  all  places,  and  before  all  people,  as  a  Christian  and 
as  a  minister ;  his  long  suffering  as  a  man  of  great  af- 
fliction of  body  and  mind,  having  been  exercised  with 
severe  diseases  and  great  labors ;  his  charity,  his  love 

a  Dr.  Phoebus :  "  Memoirs  of  Bishop  Whatcoat,"  etc.,  p.  101.    New 

York,  1828 ;  a  meager  production,  out  of  print. 

3  Minutes,  1807. 
d 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         503 

of  God  and  man,  in  all  its  effects,  tempers,  words,  and 
fictions;  bearing,  with  resignation  and  patience,  great. 
temptations,  bodily  labors,  and  inexpressible  pain.  In 
life  and  death  he  was  placid  and  calm.  As  he  lived,  bo 
lie  died." 

He  was  thirty-seven  years  an  itinerant  preacher 
twenty-two  of  them  in  America,  six  in  the  episcopate, 
and  died  aged  seventy.  He  was  buried  under  the 
altar  of  Dover  Wesley  Chapel,  where  he  had  often 
preached  with  tears  and  with  power,  and  where  for 
years  his  name,  inscribed  on  stone,  was  a  spell  of  influ- 
ence to  all  in  the  congregation  who  had  known  him.4 

We  have  witnessed  Coke's  final  departure  from  the 
United  States  in  1804.  On  his  return  to  England  ho 
was  made  president  (in  1805)  of  the  Wesleyan  Cob 
ence.  I  have  elsewhere  recorded,  somewhat  in  detail, 
his  subsequent  and  sublime  life,5  and  have  attempted  to 
delineate  in  the  present  work  his  extraordinary  charac- 
ter and  labors.  After  his  last  visit  to  this  country  he 
seemed,  for  nine  years,  almost  ubiquitous  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  administering  the  affairs  of  the  Wesleyan 
Church,  founding  and  conducting  its  Iri>h,  its  Wel>h, 
it-  "Domestic,"  and  its  Foreign  Missions,  virtually  em- 
bodying in  his  own  person  the  whole  missionary  enter- 
prise of  English  Methodism.  When  an  old  man  of 
nearly  seventy  years  be  conceived  the  project  of  intro- 
ducing Methodism  into  Asia.  He  presented  himself 
before  the  British  Conference,  and,  against  great  oppo- 

*  W  |  '1  stood  about  a  quarter  of  ■  mile  from  Dover.      1 

a     -      >n  outgrew  its  hi/.e,  and  in  ]<m  it-  materials  w.  i 

rated  iu  a  new  and  co.  tlj  church  in  the  town.     The  bishop  still  - 
in  the  old  place,  Dear  the  railroad  Rtatl  Philadelphia  Confer- 

ence erected,  in  1*'>~>.  "a  beautiful  monument"  over  bis  gra 

■  History  of  tl 
the  present  work,  vol.  ii.  j>.  l.'l. 


504  HISTORY    OF    THE 

sition,  entreated,  with  tears,  to  be  sent  as  a  missionar) 
to  India,  offering  to  defray  the  expenses  of  himself  and 
seven  chosen  colleagues.  The  Conference  could  not 
resist  his  appeal,  and  at  length,  on  the  30th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1813,  he  departed  with  his  little  band,  consisting 
of  nine  persons  besides  himself,  (two  of  them  wives  of 
missionaries,)  in  a  fleet  of  six  Indiamen.  Terrible  gales 
swept  over  them.  In  the  Indian  Ocean  his  health  rap 
idly  declined.  On  the  morning  of  the  third  of  May, 
1814,  his  servant  knocked  at  his  cabin  door  to  awake 
him  at  his  usual  time,  but  heard  no  response.  Opening 
the  door  he  beheld  the  lifeless  body  of  the  missionary 
extended  on  the  floor.  A  "placid  smile  was  on  his 
countenance."  He  was  cold  and  stiff',  and  must  have 
died  before  midnight.  It  is  supposed  that  he  had  risen 
to  call  for  help,  and  fell  by  apoplexy.  His  cabin  was 
separated  by  only  a  thin  wainscot  from  others,  in  which 
no  noise  or  struggle  had  been  heard,  and  it  is  inferred 
that  he  died  without  violent  suffering.  Consternation 
spread  among  the  missionary  band,  but  they  lost  not 
their  resolution.  They  prepared  to  commit  him  to  the 
deep,  and  to  prosecute,  as  they  might  be  able,  his  great 
design.  A  coffin  was  made,  and  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  the  corpse  was  solemnly  borne  up  to  the  lee- 
ward gangway,  where  it  was  covered  with  signal  flags , 
the  soldiers  were  drawn  up  in  rank  on  the  deck ;  the 
bell  of  the  ship  tolled,  and  the  crew  and  passengers, 
leeply  affected,  crowded  around  the  scene.  One  of  the 
missionaries  read  the  burial  service,  and  the  moment 
that  the  sun  sank  below  the  Indian  Ocean  the  coffin 
was  cast  into  its  depths.  He  died  in  his  sixty-seventh 
year.  Though  the  great  leader  was  no  more,  his 
spirit  remained  ;  and  the  East  Indian  Missions  of 
Methodism,  "presenting  in  our  day  a  state  of  massive 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         505 

strength  and  inexpressible  utility,"   sprang  from  this 
fatal  voyage. 

The  news  of  his  death  struck  a  sensation  through  nil 
the  Methodist  world.  He  was  commemorated  in  fune- 
ral sermons  in  the  principal  Methodist  churches  of 
America.  Asbury  preached  them  in  all  his  routes, 
before  the  assembled  preachers,  in  Conference,  and  pro 
nounced  him  a  man  "  of  blessed  mind  and  soul ;  a  gen- 
tleman, a  scholar,  and  a  bishop,  and  as  a  minister  of 
Christ,  in  zeal,  in  labors,  and  in  services,  the  greatest 
man  in  the  last  century/' 

In  the  frequent  accounts  of  him  in  these  pages  I  have 
not  disguised  his  faults ;  for,  though  there  was  essential 
tness  in  his  character,  he  had,  doubtless,  character- 
istic weaknesses  also.  There  have  been  few  great  men 
without  them.  The  faults  of  such  men  become  the 
more  noticeable,  either  by  contrast  with  or  by  partak- 
ing of  their  greatness ;  and  the  vanity  of  ordinary 
human  nature  is  eagerly  disposed,  in  selfgratulation,  to 
criticise  as  peculiar  defects  of  superior  minds  infirmities 
that  are  common  to  all.  Coke's  attempt  with  Bishop 
White  to  unite  the  Methodist  and  Protestant  Episcopal 
Churches  has  been  regarded  as  a  blunder,  if  not  worse 
than  a  blunder;  but  had  it  been  successful  it  might  have 
appeared  quite  otherwise.  Unquestionably  it  betrays 
a  want  of  that  keen  sagacity  which  passes  for  prudence, 
though  it  is  oftener  guile.  There  was  a  vein  of  sim- 
plicity running  through  his  whole  nature,  such  as  some- 
times marks  the  highest  genius.  Ik-  was  profound  in 
nothing  except  his  religious  sentiments.  A  certain  ca- 
paciousness of  soul,  really  va-t,  belonged  to  him,  bi; 
never  took  the  character  of  philosophic  generalization. 
It  is  impossible  to  app  uch  a  man  without  taking 

into  the  estimate  tin-  element   of  Christian  faith.     "I'll* 


506  HISTORY    OF    THE 

Christian  religion  being  true,  he  was  among  the  most 
rational  of  men  ;  that  being  false,  he  was,  like  Paul,  and 
all  genuine  Christians,  "  of  all  men  the  most  miserable," 
and  the  most  irrational.  Practical  energy  was  his  chiet 
intellectual  trait,  and  if  it  was  sometimes  effervescent,  it 
was  never  evanescent.  He  had  a  leading  agency  in  the 
greatest  facts  of  Methodism,  and  it  was  impossible  that 
the  series  of  momentous  deeds  which  mark  his  career 
could  have  been  the  result  of  mere  accident  or  fortune. 
They  must  have  been  legitimate  to  the  man.  Neither 
Whitefield  nor  Wesley  exceeded  him  in  ministerial 
travels.  It  is  probable  that  no  Methodist  of  his  day,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  any  Protestant  of  his  day,  contrib- 
uted more  from  his  own  property  for  the  spread  of  the 
gospel.  His  biographer  says  that  he  expended  the 
whole  of  his  patrimonial  estate,  which  was  large,  on  his 
missions  and  their  chapels.  He  was  married  twice ; 
both  his  wives  were  like-minded  with  himself,  and  both 
had  considerable  fortunes,  which  were  used  like  his  own. 
In  1794  was  published  an  account  of  his  missionary 
receipts  and  disbursements  for  the  preceding  year,  from 
which  it  appeared  that  there  were  due  him  nearly  eleven 
thousand  dollars;  but  he  gave  the  whole  sum  to  the 
cause.  Flying,  during  nearly  forty  years,  over  England, 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland ;  crossing  the  Atlantic 
eighteen  times ;  traversing  the  United  States  and  the 
West  Indies ;  the  first  who  suggested  the  organization 
of  English  Methodism  by  Wesley's  Deed  of  Declara 
tion  ;  the  organizer,  under  Wesley,  of  American  Meth- 
odism ;  one  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  of  Protest- 
ant bishops  in  the  Western  hemisphere  ;  the  founder  of 
the  Methodist  missions  in  the  West  Indies,  in  Africa, 
and  in  Asia,  as  well  as  in  Ireland,  Wales,  and  England ; 
the  official  and  almost  sole  director  of  the  missionary 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.         507 

operations  of  the  denomination  during  his  long  public 
life,  and  the  founder  of  its  first  Tract  Society,  he  must 
be  recognized  as  one  of  the  chief  representative  men  of 
modern  religious  history,  if  not,  indeed,  as  Asbury  pro- 
nounced him,  "  the  greatest  man  of  the  last  century  " 
"  as  a  minister  of  Christ." 

On  the  31st  of  March,  1816,  Francis  Asbury  fell  in 
death  at  the  head  of  the  hosts  of  Methodists  who  had 
been  marshaled  and  led  on,  chiefly  by  himself,  over  all 
the  republic  for  nearly  half  a  century.  If  a  distinct 
portraiture  of  his  character  had  not  been  attempted,  in 
the  outset  of  his  American  career,6  it  would  now  be 
superfluous,  for  he  has  thus  far  been  the  most  familiar 
actor  in  our  story,  the  dominant  hero  of  American 
Methodist  history.  Though  not  the  first,  he  was  the 
chief  founder  of  the  denomination  in  the  new  world. 
The  history  of  Christianity,  since  the  apostolic  age, 
affords  not  a  more  perfect  example  of  ministerial  and 
episcopal  devotion  than  was  presented  in  this  great 
man's  life.  He  preached  almost  daily  for  more  than 
half  a  century.  During  forty-five  years  he  traveled, 
with  hardly  an  intermission,  the  North  American  con- 
tinent from  North  to  South,  and  East  to  West,  directing 
the  advancing  Church  with  the  skill  and  authority  of  a 
great  captain.  Beginning  his  itinerant  ministry  in  En- 
gland when  but  seventeen  years  of  age,  he  came  to 
America  in  his  twenty-sixth  year,  was  ordained  bishop 
of  the  Church  when  thirty-nine  years  old,  when  it  com- 
prised less  than  fifteen  thousand  members,  and  but  about 
eighty  preachers,  and  fell  in  bis  seventy-first  year,  com- 
manding an  army  of  more  than  two  hundred  and  eleven 
thousand  Methodists,  and   more   than    seven   hundred 

8  See  vol.  i,  p.  Ill,  and  "  History  of  the  Religious  Movement,"  etc.. 
vols,  ii  and  in,  pa*>im. 

D— :53  * 


508  HISTORY    OF    THE 

itinerant  preachers.  It  has  been  estimated  that  in  his 
American  ministry  he  preached  about  sixteen  thousand 
five  hundred  sermons,  or  at  least  one  a  day,  and  trav- 
eled about  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  miles,  or 
six  thousand  a  year ;  that  he  presided  in  no  less  than 
two  hundred  and  twenty- four  annual  Conferences,  and 
ordained  more  than  four  thousand  preachers.  He  was, 
in  fine,  one  of  those  men  of  extraordinary,  of  anomalous 
greatness,  in  estimating  whom  the  historian  is  compelled 
to  use  terms  which  would  be  irrelevant,  as  hyperbole, 
to  most  men  with  whom  he  has  to  deal.  His  discrimi- 
nation of  character  was  marvelous ;  his  administrative 
talents  would  have  placed  him,  in  civil  government  or 
in  war,  by  the  side  of  Richelieu  or  Cesar,  and  his  success 
placed  him  unquestionably  at  the  head  of  the  leading 
characters  of  American  ecclesiastical  history.  No  one 
man  has  done  more  for  Christianity  in  the  western  hem- 
isphere. His  attitude  in  the  pulpit  was  solemn  and 
dignified,  if  not  graceful ;  his  voice  was  sonorous  and 
commanding,  and  his  discourses  were  often  attended 
with  bursts  of  eloquence  "which  spoke  a  soul  full  of 
God,  and,  like  a  mountain  torrent,  swept  all  before  it."  7 
With  Wesley,  Whitefield,  and  Coke,  he  ranks  as  one  of 
the  four  greatest  representative  men  of  the  Methodistic 
movement.  In  American  Methodism  he  ranks  immeas- 
urably above  all  his  contemporaries  and  successors. 
Notwithstanding  his  advanced  age  and  shattered  health 
he  continued  his  travels  to  the  last,  as  we  have  seen,  till 
he  had  to  be  aided  up  the  pulpit  steps,  and  to  sit  while 
preaching. 

We  last  took  leave  of  him  in  the  West,  some  six 
months  before  he  died,  when  he  wrote :  "  My  eyes  fail. 
I  will  resign  the  stations  to  Bishop  M'Kendree.     1  will 
7  Bangs,  vol.  ii,  p.  398. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL    CHURCH.        609 

take  away  my  feet."  Thence  he  journeyed  southward, 
suffering  from  influenza,  which  resulted  in  pulmonary 
ulceration  and  consumption.  He  endeavored  to  advance 
northward,  to  meet,  once  more,  the  General  Conference 
at  Baltimore,  preaching  continually  on  the  way.  While 
passing  through  Virginia  he  wrote  :  "  I  die  daily — am 
made  perfect  by  labor  and  suffering,  and  fill  up  still  what 
is  behind.  There  is  no  time,  no  opportunity  to  take  medi- 
cine in  the  day ;  I  must  do  it  at  night.  I  am  wasting 
away  with  a  constant  dysentery  and  cough."  In  the 
last  entry  of  his  journal  (save  a  single  sentence)  he  says: 
"  My  consolations  are  great.  I  live  in  God  from  mo- 
ment to  moment— broken  to  pieces."  He  reached  Rich- 
mond, Va  ,  and  at  three  o'clock  Sunday  afternoon,  March 
24,  1816,  preached  there  in  the  old  Methodist  church  his 
Last  sermon.  He  was  carried  to  and  from  the  pulpit,  and 
sat  while  preaching.  His  faithful  traveling  companion, 
Bond,  took  him  to  Spottsylvania,  where  he  failed  rapidly, 
and  on  Sunday  2  :  st.  expired,  raising  both  his  hands,  when 
unable  to  speak,  in  affirmative  reply  to  an  inquiry  re- 
specting his  trust  and  comfort  in  Christ. 

His  remains  were  disinterred,  and  borne  to  Baltimore, 
at  the  ensuing  General  Conference,  where,  with  public 
solemnities,  a  sermon  from  M'Kendree,  and  an  immense 
procession,  they  were  laid  to  rest  beneath  the  altar  of 
Kutaw->treet  Church. 

In  that  procession,  including  all  the  General  Confer- 
ence, and  hundreds  of  other  clergymen  from  the  city 
and  neighboring  churches,  walked  Jesse  Lee.  Thrift, 
his  biographer,  who  was  by  bis  Bide,  Bays,  u The  scene 
was  solemn  and  impressive;  Lee's  countenance  bespoke 
his  emotions.  A  dignified  sorrow,  such  as  veterans  leel 
while  following  to  the  grave  an  old  companion  in  arms, 
was  evinced  by  his  words  and  countenance.     They  had 


510  HISTORY    OF    THE 

suffered  together,  and  bad  long  fought  in  the  same 
ranks.  The  one  had  gained  his  crown,  the  other  was 
soon  to  receive  his."  In  less  than  six  months  Lee  also 
had  fallen.  About  the  middle  of  August  he  went  to  a 
camp  meeting  near  Hillsborough,  on  the  Eastern  Shore 
of  Maryland.  After  preaching  he  was  seized  with  fever, 
and  carried  to  Hillsborough.  All  remedies  failed.  He 
suffered  at  first  from  depression ;  but  "  for  several  days 
preceding  his  death  he  was  filled  with  holy  joy.  Fre- 
quently he  cried  out,  *  Glory,  glory,  glory  !  halleluiah, 
halleluiah  !  Jesus  reigns  ! '  At  another  time  he  spoke 
with  great  distinctness  and  deliberation  for  nearly 
twenty  minutes,  giving  directions  about  his  affairs,  and 
sending  the  assurance  he  was  'dying  in  the  Lord'  to 
comfort  his  distant  family.  Nor  did  he  forget  his  fel- 
low laborers.  '  Give  my  respects  to  Bishop  M'Kemlree,' 
he  said,  '  and  tell  him  I  die  in  love  with  all  the  preach- 
ers ;  that  I  do  love  him,  and  that  he  lives  in  my  heart.' 
Having  finished  his  work,  he  said  but  little  more ;  but 
fell  asleep  on  the  evening  of  the  12th  of  September, 
1816."  8  He  was  borne  to  Baltimore,  and  interred  in  its 
"  old  Methodist  burial  ground." 

He  was  fifty-eight  years  old.  A  man  of  vigorous, 
though  unpolished  mind,  of  rare  popular  eloquence, 
and  tireless  energy,  an  itinerant  evangelist,  from  the 
British  provinces  to  Florida,  for  thirty-five  years,  a 
presiding  elder  for  many  years,  a  chief  counsellor  of 
the  Church  in  its  Annual  and  General  Conferences, 
chaplain  to  Congress,  founder  of  Methodism  in  New 
England,  and  first  historian  of  the  Church,  he  lacked 
only  the  episcopal  office  to  give  him  rank  with  Asbury 
and  Coke.  Asbury  early  chose  him  for  that  posi- 
tion. Some  two  or  three  times  it  seemed  likely  that 
a  Lee's  Life  of  Lee,  p.  503. 


METHODIST    EPISCOPAL     CHURCH.        511 

he  would  be  elected  to  it,  but  his  manly  independence 
and  firmness  of  opinion,  in  times  of  party  strife,  were 
made  the  occasions  of  his  defeat.  His  staunch  advocacy 
of  an  elective  presiding  eldership,  and  his  opposition  to 
the  ordination  of  local  preachers  as  elders,  (questions  of 
prolonged  and  spirited  controversy,)  cost  him  the  suf- 
frages of  men  who  should  have  been  superior  to  such 
party  consideration*,  at  least  in  the  presence  of  such  a 
man.  But  his  historic  position  needed  no  such  addition. 
Xo  official  distinction  could  enhance  its  dignity.  In 
public  services  he  may  fairly  be  ranked  next  to  Asbury, 
and  as  founder  and  apostle  of  eastern  Methodism  he  is 
above  any  other  official  rank.  In  this  respect  his  his- 
toric honor  is  quite  unique  ;  for  though  individual  men 
have,  in  several  other  sections  of  the  continent,  initiated 
the  denomination,  no  other  founder  has,  so  completely  as 
he,  introduced,  conducted,  and  concluded  his  work,  and 
from  no  other  one  man's  similar  work  has  proceeded 
equal  advantages  to  American  Methodism. 

Thus  fell,  in  arms,  but  victorious,  toward  the  conclu- 
sion of  our  period,  one  after  another  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous heroes  of  this  grand  Methodistic  battle-field  of 
the  new  world ;  the  last  two,  (and  perhaps  the  two 
most  important  in  the  American  history  of  the  denomi- 
nation,) in  the  very  year  that  completed  its  first  half 
century,  and  all  of  them  giving,  by  both  their  great 
deeds  and  sublime  deaths,  a  sort  of  epic  grandeur  and 
completeness  to  the  history  of  the  Church  down  to  this 
epoch.  In  no  place  can  the  historian  more  appropriately 
drop  the  curtain  of  this  singular  religious  drama.  And 
he  should  have  the  good  sense  not  to  mar  it  with  elab- 
orate reflections,  for  it  needs  none.  Its  every  page  has 
been  suggestive  of  lessons,  and  it  requires  no  epilogue. 
It  demonstrates  one   obvious  and   rablime   fact:   that 


512        HISTORY    OF    THE    M.    E.    CHURCH. 

Christianity,  thrown  back  upon  its  primordial  truths 
and  forces,  cannot  fail,  in  its  very  simplicity,  humility, 
charity,  and  power,  to  attain  the  mastery  of  the  human 
ioul,  to  wield  the  supremacy  of  the  moral  world.  This 
lowly  Methodistic  story  is  but  the  reproduction,  in  sub- 
stance, of  the  apostolic  history,  and  presents,  in  fill 
vitality,  that  original,  that  only  example  of  evangelical 
propagandism,  which,  when  all  dogmatic  conflicts  and 
hierarchical  pretensions,  with  their  wasted  passions  and 
pomps,  are  recorded  as  historical  failures,  will  bear 
forward  to  universal  triumph  the  ensign  of  the  cross 
by  a  catholic,  living,  working  Church  of  the  common 
people. 


INDEX. 


Abbott.  Benjamin,  sketch  of.  1.  195,  251.'Askin.  George,  Iv,  484. 

and  Mai  v  White.  315;  hlsfuither  labors,!  Assistants,  what?  ii,  225. 

882;  Ii,  806-816;  lii,  65;  his  death.  71  ;'Augusta  College,  iv,  8S8,  896,  469. 

mentioned  ii,  IT.  81  ;  iii,  221.  JAxley,  James,  sketch  of,  iv,  366,  372,  875: 

A  cuff.  Francis.  HI,  888, 852.  |    in    southwest.   405,    406;    in    General 

Adams's,  President,  opinion  of  Captain,     Conference,  430,451. 

Webb.  i.  60. 
African   Methodist   Epi-copal   Churches.  Baker,  James  J.,  i.  89. 

origin  of.  iv,  259.  Baltimore,  John  King  there,  i,  SO  ;  Board- 


African  Methodist  Missions,  origin  of,  ii, 
3,-4  ■  ordination  of  Africans,  iv~  174. 

Airy,  Henry,  i.  369 ;  iii.  426. 

Alabama.  Methodism  there,  iv.  201. 

Alexandrian  Chun  h,  consecrated  bishops 
by  presbyters,  ii.  155. 

Alleghany  College,  iv.  409. 


A  Ten,  Beverly,  ii,  165,  249. 

330. 
Allen.  Richard,  first  ordained  African,  iv 

174,  246,  -J60. 
Ans  n,  William,  iii.  460;  in  Canada.  477. 
Apl>ointments,   term    of  ministerial,    iv 

lift 
Armir,iani-m.  i,  29;  ii,  206,  208,  209. 
Arrington.  Joel,  iv,  242. 
Ar  icles  of  Religion,  ii,  106.  197, 199,  205. 
Asbury.    Franci 

character,  11"/ 


man  there.  105;  Pilmoor,  107;  Asbury, 
134:  its  first,  chapels,  136.  222;  its  sec- 
ond, ii,  20;  first  Conference  there,  19; 
first  General  Conference  there,  181;  Its 
donations  to  New  England,  iv,  811,  312. 

Bancroft,  George,  on   Methodism,  i,  28 

|     on  Wesley,  284. 


iii.  101.  Bands,  ii.  285. 

Bangs,  Heman,  iv,  256. 
Bangs.  Nathan,  iii.  4T7,  479.  430;  Iv,  154. 
255,  274,  275,  352,  446,  443,  477,  478 
4S2. 
Baptismal    Eegeneration,    not    held    by 

Wesley,  ii.  207. 
Barrett,  Judge,  i,  300  ;  ii,  171. 
Bascom.  Ilenrv  B.,  Iii,  294;  sketch  of,  lv, 
3ns. 
his  early  life,   i.  111:  Bassett,  Senator,  1,  111,  816.  865.  872;  ii, 
lab  rs  in  America,  128 ; I     122;  receives  Coke,   170;  mentioned- 


restores  the  itinerancy,  126.  161,  163  ;|    iii,  62,  405;  iv,  502. 

his    labon    -    I     -.-    281;   during  the  Beauchamp.  William,  iv.  29,  61,  98,  878. 

Revolution.  27-.  268.  299;  ii.  19,  25.  27,  Beale,  Captain,  iv.  317.  321. 

:    resumes   active  labors.  76,  77,  Beae,  Oliver,  iv,  66.  300,  315. 

:   A-burv  and  Ware.  11-;  on  Bemis.  Benjamin,  of  Waltham,   iii,  209; 
the   death    of   Robins.   124;    continued      iv,  317. 

13<>;    meets  Coke  at  Barrett's  Bethel  School,  (see  Education.) 
Chapel,  171 ;  oMained  bishop.  Hi  :  c  n-  Between -thc-Logs,    Indian    preacher,   iv 
tinned:.  252,  292;  labors  In  I    437. 

♦he  West,  868;   In   the  East,   470;   at .  l'ibbins,  Samuel,  H,  329. 
General  fonfe.ence.  1792.  Hi.  21;   fnr- Bldlaek,  Benjamin,  HI,  465. 
the?  travels.  43,  114;  his  morbidness,  Btgelow,  BusselL  sketch  of,  iv,  835. 
IIS:  among  the  Pennsylvania  mount-  "Big-Tree."  Indian  preacher,  iv,  436,  487. 
I;  in  New  England.  207,  249,  Bininger,   Abraham,  companion  of  Em- 

10;  in       bury.  i.  07,  108. 
tb,  ■»>■";;  ordination  of  Bangs,  I  Binncy,  Col  Amos,  Ir,  59. 
193;  in   the  Bast,  iv.   11;  South.   15;  Blrchett,  Henry,  ii,  867 ;  HI,  862. 
Best,  15.  64;    West,  96,  129,  154,  404;  Bishops,  Methodist,  ii,  165,  182,  1S4;  the 
South.    283;    North,   2-3:    i  title  used,  191, 497;  general  account  of 

D  ioned.  440.    417.    149.      the  office,  224;    iii.   17;    mode  of  sup- 
502;  death  and  character.      port,  iv.  172;  character,  187. 

B  ack    Harry,  famous   African  preacher, 
IL  171,  174.  881.  44- 
241. 
Black.   William,  nf   Nova  Scotia.  11    179. 
260,  118,  37'.',  880;  h 


: 
a-hgr.vr-,  N.  Y..  society  founded  by  Em 
"  ;   rea  :bed   by   Itil  •  I 
980;  Asbury  there,  Ml,  120;  iv.  192. 

*ahton.  u(  A-    .  108  ;  iL  331. 


614 


INDEX. 


Blackman,  Larner,  sketch  of,  iv,  134,  379, 
899. 

Bloodgood,  John,  ii,  459. 

Boardinan,  Richard,  sent  to  America,  i, 
93;  account  of,  95,  100,  104,  128,  131, 
166;  last,  years  and  death,  167;  men- 
tioned, 210. 

Boehler,  Peter,  i,  34. 

Boehni,  Henry,  i,  319;  iii,  422;  iv,  110, 
168,  446. 

Boehm,  Martin,  i,  218,219,  220,  395;  iii, 
435. 

Bohemia  Manor,  i,  122,  318.  401. 

Bond.  John  Wesley,  iv,  234,  243. 

Bond,  Dr.  T.,  ii,  296;  note,  459. 

Bonney,  Isaac,  iii,  441. 

Book,  file.,  publishing,  i,  165,  193;  ii,  225, 
233,  235,  283,  497;  "Book  Conc<'m,,, 
499;  iii.  131,  340,  481 ;  iv,  180;  430.  451, 
453,  455,  457,  405;  Beauchamp's  Moni- 
tor. 3",  460;  Shinn's  works,  S3;  Fin- 
ley's,  335,  note;  Elliott's,  342;  Fisk's, 
292;  Bascom's,  3S9 ;  Durbin's,  896. 

Bostvvick,  Shadrach,  iv,  14,  15,  28,  151. 

Bowman,  Elisha  W.,  in  southwest,  iv. 
399. 

Bowman,  Thomas  and  Christian,  iii,  157. 

Boyer,  Caleb,  i,  360 ;  ii,  83,  88, 1S9. 

Brame,   'ohn  P.,  iv,  243 

Branch,  Thomas,  iv,  66,  324,  333,  33S. 

Breeze.  Samuel,  ii,  135,  339;  iii,  2-6,  287. 

Brodhead,  John,  iii,  136,  471 ;  account  of, 
499;  iv,  70.315. 

Brooklyn,  Methodism  there,  ii,  110. 

Brown,  David,  iv.  192. 

Brown,  Jesse,  iv.  242. 

Bruce,  Philip,  account  of,  ii,  93 ;  iii,  112; 
iv,  96,  183. 

Brunson.  Alfred,  iv,  343. 

Brush,  Jacob,  ii,  435.  436;  iii.  221. 

Bryan.  General,  conversion  of,  ii,  313. 

Buchanan,  James,  judge  at  Gruber's  tria1, 
iv.  251. 

Budd,  Thomas,  iv.  280. 

Bunting,  Jabez,  and  Boardman,  i,  97. 

Burch.  Robert,  iii.  434.  472. 

Burch,  Thomas  iii,  433;  iv,  275. 

Burdge,  Mi  hael.  iv.  202. 

Burke,  William,  in  West,  ii.  349;  sketeh 
of,  355;  iii,  300;  iv,  97.  129,  178,  3:S6. 

B'rkhanfs  German  History  of  Method- 
ism, iv,  457 ;  note. 

Burnett.  George,  iv,  244. 

Burton's,  Captain,  singular  conversion,  iii, 
3S0. 

Camp-meetings  origin  of,  iv,  114,  158; 
elfects,  238;  bow  conducted,  349,  356; 
Asburv's  opinion  of,  427;  their  extrav- 
agances, 43-'. 

Canada,  Methodism  there,  ii.  392  ;  iii,  16-. 
847,  475:  iv,  259.  261,  271;  Asbury 
there,  284;  Indian  Missions,  436 ;  men- 
tioned. 452. 

Candt-e,  Isaac,  iv,  254. 

Capers.  William,  ii,  146;  iii,  397;  iv,  200, 
218,  225. 
•l 


Carlisle.  Co  eraan  and  Simon,  account  a. 
iii,  106. 

Carpenter,  Benjamin,  layman  in  Wyo- 
ming Valley,  ii,  334. 

Cartwright,  Peter,  ii,  302,  :-36;  iv  369; 
sketch  of,  371. 

Case,  William,  iii,  475;  iv,  154,  272,  274. 
352.  452. 

Cassell.  Leonard,  iv.  241. 

Celibacy  of  early  preachers,  iv,  236. 

Chandler,  Dr.,  account  of,  iii,  408 

Chapels,  Methodist,  i,  416;  number  \l 
1784,  ii,  24  I;  first  in  the  West.  340; 
first  in  New  England,  457;  first  in 
Massachusetts,  47u ;  those  of  New  York, 
iii,  164,  473;  of  Albany,  164;  iv,  263: 
in  Can;ida,  478;  first  in  Indiana,  153: 
in  Troy,  263;  Schenectady,  264;  in 
Louisiana,  406. 

"Charles,"  a  black  Methodist,  anecdote, 
iv,  214. 

Charleston,  S.  C,  Pilmoor  there,  i.  108; 
Methodism  there,  ii,  253.  26*,  299 ;  Ham- 
mett's  schism,  iii,  46;  iv,  199,  225. 

Cbastreen,  Louis,  iii,  319,  321. 

Chicag  >,  Jesse.  Walker  there,  iv,  363. 

Chienvrant.  Joseph,  ii.  344;  iii.  324;  iv,  SI. 

Children  of  the  Church,  ii,  232. 

Christian  Advocate,  iv,  460. 

Christian  Library,  Wesley's,  iv,  458. 

t'luistie,  Henry,  ii,  465;  iv,  72. 

'  hristmas  Conference,  ii,  181. 

C  a  k,  Abner,  iv,  324. 

Clark,  Francis,  western  pioneer,  ii,  359 ; 
iii,  317. 

(lark,  John,  in  Illinois,  iv,  353. 

(lark,  Laban,  iii,  495;  iv,  69,  264,  477. 

Class-meetings,  ii,  235. 

Clergy,  English  colonial,  their  character, 
i,  276:  ii,  12T. 

Cloud,  Robert,  ii,  57. 

Coate,  Michael,  iii,  223,  476;  iv,  15,  282. 

Coate,  Samuel,  iii,  195,  476;  iv,  274 

Cochrane,  Simon,  pioneer  local  preacher, 
ii,  136. 

Coke,  Dr.,  i,  326,  373:  ii,  69;  sketch  of, 
151  ;  consecrated  a  bishop  by  Wesley, 
165;  ernes  to  America,  168:  labors 
there,  174,  243;  returns  to  Eur  pe,  252; 
returns  to  America,  261,  276,286,  496; 
iii,  12;  corresj  ondence  wiih  Bishop 
White,  iii.  41;  travels  in  America,  42, 
33S,  344,  353,  355,  370,  376:  iv,  167.  178; 
final  departure  from  America,  184.428; 
correspondence  wiih  Bishop  While 
fuither  noticed,  442;  mentioned,  472., 
475;  death  and  character,  5u8. 

Cokesbury  College,  (see  Education.) 

Colbert.  William,  ii,  336;  iii,  28, 152,  462, 
469. 

Cole,  Le  R  y,  ii,  4 \  43,  59. 

Colermm,  James,  iii,  177,  181,  195,  208, 
479  :  iv,  SO. 

Coleridge  oil  Wesley's  doctrine  of  faith, 
i,  36;  note. 

Colonies,  American,  their  religious  char 
acter,  i,  18,20,270;  ii,  163. 


INDEX. 


515 


Collo-d,  James,  iv.  885. 

College,  a,  projected,  ii,  173.  (see  Educa-. 
ti..n.) 

Collins,  John,  iv,  134,  140;  sketch  of. 
8T8. 

Conferencea,  first  American,  i.  151,  2S6; 
second,  2  .'7;  sessiona  ii.  1-'.  13:  the 
third.  13:  the  fourth.  19:  fifth,  25;  sixth. 
4":  seventh  and  eighth,  I 
sion*.  73.  >f  *•//..  9".  102,  112.  180;  gen- 
eral ac  ount  of,  220;  first  in  N'  rth  C;  r- 
olina,  24?:  <litto  South  Carolina.  266; 
ditto  in  New  England,  4-5.  4'.' 
sions  from  the  (.'hrstm.-is  Conference 
to  the  first  Genera]  Conference,  494; 
their  character,  iii.  12.  439:  first  in 
Maine.  It,  28;  nW  western.  96,  157, 
160,  161,  I'm.  32-:  numher  in  1800, 
172:  boundaries,  192;  Genesee  orsan- 
iz-d.  271.  45u:  Ohio  organize,  329. 
i'ennrssee  organized,  830,  450', 
Kentucky  organized.  880 :  Mississippi 
organized.  33".  450;  Pitts!>un:h  organ- 
ized. 331  :  Indiana  organized.  350; 
Michigan  organized.  852;  Missouri  or- 
ganized. 858,  4.".") :  Mississippi  oiganiz,ed. 
45".. 

Conferences,  District,  ii.  224:  iii.  17. 

Conferences.  General.  "Christmas/1  or 
first,  ii,  1-1;  outline  of.  22":  iii.  11 ;  the 
second.  11.  14;  regular  ones  ordained. 
17;  proceeding,  16;  question  about 
earlv  -  I     It,  448,  notes;  third. 

33-;  se-sions  of  1800  and  l-"4.  167; 
attempt  to  make  it  representative.  174. 
17'.'.  439:  sesMMii  of  1-04.  i:>:  change 
..f  time.  159;  session  of  1808,  439;  firm 
debated  sessj  n.  -ion  of 

1-6.  452. 

Conf  renccs.  Quarterly,  first  i.  132;  their 
character,  ii,  12;  general  account  of. 
223:  iv.  179. 

Cook.  Cornelius,  ii.  | 

Cook.  Valentine,  iii.  146:  sketch  of.  159. 
33".  34'.';  iv.  75.  99.  110,4 

Coop  r.  Ezeki.l,  ii.  178:  sketch  of.  iii.  130, 
.   I  -lavery,    176;    men- 

tioned. IS".  445. 

John,  earlv  pr-ach.  r.  i.  374;  ii. 
15.  134.  33-;   labors  in   the  W  - 

Conghlan.  Lawrence,  founder  of  Method- 
ism in  Newfoundland,  ii.     - 
Connci'.  lb**,  ii.  601  ;  Iff,  pj.  1:,. 
<  ourt  Mattros-.  Inland.  L 

'  mea,  11,881. 
Cox,  M.lville  B,  first  foreign  missionary, 

Cov.  Phil. p.  i.  247;  ii.  70,409;  i;; 
95.  890:  first  American  colporteur,  iv, 

Crawford,  Joseph,  iv.  49.  63.  312. 

i,  I  lev.  J..  •,-  In  or- 

dination of  Coke.  ii.  16*5. 

Cr  rnwell,  J   • 
in  Nova  Bcotta,  379. 

Crowell,  Joshua,  iii,  441. 


Crowell.  Beth,  iii.  475. 

Cryder,  Michael,  pioneer  1.  ral  preacher, 

it  137. 
Cull,  James  O.,  iv,  84. 

D-<u2haday,  Thomas  iv,  290. 

Davies,  President,  i,  1>2. 

Davis.  .I„|,n.  iv,  229. 

Dempster.  James.  1.  264. 

Deveau,  Frederick,  of  New  Rochelle, 

107. 
De  Vinne.  Daniel,  iv.  422. 
Dewy,  Timothy,  iii.  472. 
Di  kins.  John,  ii,  41.  43.  52.  53.  75;   re- 
ceive-  Coke.  17<>;    project-*   a  college, 

173.   258,   255;    becomes    Book     >2fti'. 

4!»9:  iv.  459;  mentioned, ii, 501 ;  iii,  28; 

his  death,  iv.  1<*0. 
Dickinson,  Cnarles,  iv,  244. 
Pickinson  Colle-e,  iv,  396. 
Dimmitt.   Ezekiel,   layman   in   Ohio,  iv, 

136. 
Discipline.  Book  of.  ii.  19".  219:  iii.  21,  42; 

German  translation.  436 ;  mutilated,  iv, 

1-4,446. 
Disosway.  Israel,  i.  125. 
District  Conferences,  annual,  so  called,  li. 

224:  title  d  opped.  iii.  3S9. 
Doddridg.-,  John,  ii,  340. 
Dorsey,  Judge,  and  Eleanor.  Iv,  269.  271. 
Douzharty.  George,  iii,  366;   iv,  176,  1S2, 

188,  1-4".  240. 
Douglass.  J.  L..  iv,  42". 
Dow.  Lorenzo,  i  i,  2"",  279.  469:    iv,  14, 

29.  5'i,  55,  56.  62.  72.  2"1.  4"6,  413. 
Dromsoole.  Edward,  I,  243.  411 ;  ii,  1-,  26, 

-1 ;  iii.  44. 
Draper.  Gideon,  iv,  266. 
Drai  er,  Samuel,  iii,  47S. 
Duke,  William,  i.  245,  ii.  16.  57. 
Duniiam.  Darius,  sketch  of,  iii,  169,  174. 

177.  151.  186,  1-9.  195.  19-;  locates,  476. 
Dnnw  dv.  Samuel,  iv.  19-,  199.  2"3.  211. 
Dm  bin.  John,  death  of.  iv,  240. 
Durhin.  John  P.,  sketch  of,  iv,  393,  465, 

47".  4-4. 
Dutchman's,  "experience. "a  ii,  66,  note; 

i  i.  458,  note. 
Dwight,  Dr.,  and  Lee,  II,  425. 

Early,  John,  iv,  215. 
Early,  William,  i v.  159. 

John,  ii.  Ill:  iii,  82  90. 
6  irly  preacher,  expelh  d.  i.  250. 
Education,  Methodist   institutions  of.  ii. 
17:'.;    Iv.   407;    Cok.-s   urv    Co  Ice.    ii. 

J58;  burned,  I 
Cook  there. 

;  ditto  in  the 
279;     Asbui 

Bethel    School,  871;    iv.    1"'.',   112,    113. 
district  -rhooV  iii.  44;    Rop« 
-    103:  act  on  of  the  Gen- 
eral Conl  12;   ru  ns  of 
bury  College,  iv.  285;    Indian 
436;  l-  -titutlo  is  and 


616 


I N  L  E  X. 


Elder,  presiding,  ii,  235,  326,  501 ;  defini-e 
ly  established,  iii,  17;  duties,  18;  pow 
ers  of,  iv,  ISO;  attem]t  to  make  e'.ect 
ive,  iv,  173,440,452,458. 

Ellis,  Ira,  ii,  lid. 

Ellis,  Reuben,  ii,  89,  48,  52,  59,  78. 

Elliott,  Charles,  iv,  341,  436. 

Embury,   Philip,    his   early    life,  i,  51; 
founds  Methodism  in  New  York,  54- 
66;  subsequent  history,  67;  death',  68 
his  family,  63;  ii,  393;  mentioned,  iii 
120. 

Erne  son,  first  class-leader  in  Philadel- 
phia, i,  121. 

Emory,  John,  account  of,  iv,  247,  259 
260. 

Ennalls,  of  Maryland,  iii,  425;  iv,  175. 

Episco  al  offi  e,  Wesley's  opinion  of,  ii 
165,  167,  189,  H  *eq.;  attempt  to  makt 
it  diocesan,  iv,  445;  importance  of  its 
itinerancy,  499. 

Ernest,  Felix,  in  the  West,  ii,  356;  ii 
£81;  iv,  165. 

Evans,  Henry,  remarkable  colored 
preacher,  iv,  221. 

Everett,  Joseph,  sketch  of,  ii,  95,  256;  iv, 
241. 

Exhorter,  ii,  235 ;  to  be  licensed,  iv,  453, 

Fayetteville,  S.  C,  Church  founded  there 

by  a  negro,  iv,  221. 
Ferguson,  Joseph,  western    oioneer,  ii, 

300. 
Fidler,  Daniel,  iv,  65,  80. 
Fillmore,  Daniel,  iv,  59. 
Fil  mor.-,  Glezen,  iv,  268. 
Fin  ley,  J.    B„  sketch   of,  iv,  334,  432, 

486. 
Fisher,  William  S.,  iv,  282. 
Fisk,  Wi  bur.  iv,  2-8,  469 
Fleming,  Tho  nton,  iii,  163,  349;  iv,82. 
Fie  cher's  (of  Madele\ )  interest  for  Amer 

lea,  ii,  164;  mentioned,  170. 
Floyd,  Moses,  in  the  southwest,  iv,  132. 
Fluvanna  (  onferenee,  ii,  56;  its  character 

and  importance,  60;  mentioned,  73,  78, 

164. 
Ford,  John  8.,  iv,  203. 
Foster,  James,  early  preacher,  i,  299*  ii, 

21,  59. 
Foster,  Thomas,  ii,  83,  88. 
Fund,  general,  ii,  203. 
Fund,  preachers',  ii.  202;  iv,  172;  char- 
tered, ii,  203;  iii,  340. 

Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  iv,  471. 

Garrett  on,  Fieelorn,  early  life,  i,  225, 
281 ;  sketch  of,  352  ;  ii,  19,  24, 27,  29. 52, 
7S;  m  eis  Coke,  171;  mentioned,  181. 
18S,  282;  in  Nova  Scotia,  824,  37S;  es- 
capes being  made  bishop,  324;  iii.  3s; 
urojeets  Moth  dism  up  the  Hudson,  ii, 
326;  in  New  England.  44-;;  his  horn. - 
steai t.  iii,  121;  further  mentioned,  130; 
iv.  252. 

Garrettson,  Richard,  ii,  52. 

Ga&soway,  William,  iii.  398. 


Gatch,  Philip,  i,  114;  sketch  of,  159,  229, 
245,874;  locates,  880;  mentioned,  ii,  26, 
52,  59,  78;  iii,  286,  336;  he  reappears  in 
the  West,  iv,  145. 

"  General  Rules,"  the,  ii,  217. 

Genesee  Conference,  iv,  246;  organized, 
271;  session  in  Canada,  277,  278;  legal- 
ity questioned,  450. 

George,  Enoch,  ii,  71,  111;  sketch  of.  iii, 
88,  397.  403;  iv,  278;  made  bishop,  453 

Germans.  Albright,  iii,  435. 

German  Methodists,  of  Otterbein,  i,  2T, 
221,  234. 

Germans,  of  M.  E.  Church,  iv,  483. 

Gibson,  Randall,  iv,  412. 

Gibson,  Tobias,  i  i,  57,  808,  899;  in  south 
west,  iv,  131,  203,  328,  399. 

Gier,  Em  but  y's  teacher,  i,  53. 

G.lhert,  Nathaniel,  founds  Methodism  in 
West  Indies,  ii,  264. 

Gill,  William,  account  of,  ii,  36,  88,  43,  5°.. 

Glendenning,  i,  264,  265;  ii,  15,  26,  131. 

Gowns  and  Fands,  ii,  198,  275,  298;  iii, 
195. 

Gough,  of  Perry  Hall,  i,  235,  308;  ii,  179; 
iv,  235. 

Government,  Church,  Methodist  views  of, 
ii,  165,  et  "eg.,  189. 

Griffith,  Alfred,  iii,  467;  iv,  214,  231. 

Griffin,  Thomas,  iv,  418,  415,  424 

G  ruber.  Jacob,  iii,  430;  iv,  250,  832. 

Guest,  Job,  i,  305;  iv,  213. 

Gueting,  German  Methodist,  i,  219,  220. 

Gurwell,  Jacob,  local  preacher,  iv,  84,  85. 

Gwyn,  James,  iv,  120,  431. 

Haggard y,  Rice,  iii,  31,  44. 

Ha^gerty,  J..hn,  ii,  66,  496;  iii,  144, 146. 

Haime,  John,  i,  143,  145. 

Hall,  Joshua,  iii,  284;  iv,  14. 

Hamilton,  Sir  W.,  on  "assurance,"  ii.  210. 

Hamlin,  David,  Genesee  layman,  iv.  267. 

Harame  t,  William,  ii,  261-  iii,  46,  96, 
364,377;  iv,  199,219,225. 

Harden,  Col.,  iv,  106. 

Harper,  John,  from  West  Indies,  iii,  272* 
iv,  176. 

Harper,  Miles,  iv,  4  7,  418. 

HaiTiman,  Hezekiah,  iv,  132,  435. 

Harris,  Fletcher,  iv,  243. 

Harrison,  President,  iv,  396,  408. 

Hartley,  Joseph,  early  preacher,  i,  281, 
299,  809,  357. 

Haw,  James,  ii,  135,  860,  868. 

Heck,  P;iul  and  Barbara,  sketches  of,  i, 
52;  she  starts  Methodim  in  New  York, 
55;  subsequent  life,  68.  103;  In  Can- 
ada, ii,  393;  iii,  168,  173;  month  ne-l, 
120;  her  death,  4li6;  her  family,  497, 
note. 

Hedding,  Elijah,  iii,  458;  sketch  of,  iv.  52, 
62  :  at  i  he  grave  of  Thcmas  Branch,  67; 
mentioned,  801.  315.  461. 

'•Helpers,"  what?  ii,  226. 

Henley.  Edmund,  iv,  240. 

Hersey,  Samuel,  of  Bohemia  Manor,  I 
122. 


INDEX. 


517 


Hihbard,  Billy,  iii,  442;  iv,  16,  71. 

Hibbard.  Robert,  lv. 

Hfekox,  Joseph,  in  Michigan,  iv,  351,  352. 

Hiekson,  Wo<»l man,  ii,  109,  825. 

Hill,  Henry,  i 

Hillman.  Samuel,  iv,  66. 

Binson's  Chapel,  i.  1ST,  4  2 

Hitt,  Daniel   iii.  64 :  iv,  TO,  445. 

Hobhs,  Lewi?,  iv.  415,  416. 

Ho  j  Club.  iv.  -194. 

Ho.kL    ohn.  early  la.  man  of  Philadelphia, 

i.  92,  121. 
Howard,  of  Tolland,  iii,  211. 
How  e,  Samue  .  iv.  264. 
Hu  1.  Hop-,  iL4sT;  sketch  of,  iii,  10  ',244; 

iv.  198,  2"5. 
Humphries,  Thomas,  iii,  101. 
Hurst.  Aaron,  sketch  of,  iii.  220. 
Hu  st,   Lewis,   we-tcrn   pioneer,  iv.  142, 

149;  death,  192. 
Hurst,  \\  il  iam.  iv,  324. 
Hutciiin-on.  Sylvester,  iii,  457. 
Hymns.  Methodist,  it  197,  193. 
Hynes,  Dr..  iv.  4i>4. 

I  iff.  Benjamin,  iv.  2S0. 

Illinois.   Methodism  enters,  iv,  153,  329, 

85u.  35  L 
Indiana,  M>  thodism  introduced  into,  iv, 

152,  329:  its  i  rogress.  850. 
Indians,  labors  for,  ii,  142,  2?3;  iv,  4:3.". 

48o. 
Indies,  West,  Methodism  there,  ii,  263. 
Ivey.  liichard,  account  of,  ii,  47,  52. 

k  Jacob,  b'ack,"  founds  a  society,  iv,  124. 

Jacob,  John  J.,  western  local  preacher,  ii, 
136. 

J  <_-<'b.  Stephen,  iv.  2^2. 

Jacobs,  it  chard,  p  rishes  in  the  woods,  iii. 
185.  461. 

Jacoby.  Ludwig  I  .  iv.  4^4. 

James,  eailv  preacher  in  New  Jersev,  ii, 
305. 

J»r-aL  of  Protectant  Fp -copal  Church, 
friend  to  Methodists,  i.  85,  182;  his  ac- 
count ofagreit  revival  in  Vi  ginia,  182. 
224,    -■       -  ■    .  Banc  IfiVari 

men-.ioned,  800,  8*1,  347.  Z'L  379;    ii. 
23.  108,  1  4.  127,  1--'-.    8o,  J  4 J.  _ 
ii.  B9;  bis  death.  887. 

Jayne.  I'e  *r.  iv.  324. 

Jefferson.  Hamilton,   ii.  4  4;  iv,  230. 

Jennings,  Dr.  S.  K..  iv,  4W. 

u  Jerks,*1  the.  iv.  43.'. 

William,  ii.  14-:  iii.  31S. 

Jewell,  Joarph,  iii.  471 

Johnson.  Benjamin  fir-t  layman  of  Lynn, 
■ 

fohnson.  Dr.,  and  W 

Johnson.  Ewen.  Iv,  2l.'. ' 

John-  treet  chape'.  1.  62:  parsonage,  67; 
mend  >ned   lo4.  417:  ii,  275. 

/one  .  lenjamin.  iv.  249, 

John,  lavman  in  Bedstone  country, 
i  .    85,889,  340. 
ones,  Peter,  iv,  48T. 


Kain,  Parson,  oppone  »t  of  Methodists, 

247,  375. 
Keeler,  Sylvan  us,  in  Canada,  iii,  192;  lv 

274.       " 
Keith.  William,  iv,  280. 
Kendrick,  Bennet,  death  of,  iv,  240. 
Kennedy,  William  M.,  iv,  205, 
Kennon",  J.  W..  iv,  202,  203. 
Kennon,  K.  J.,  iv,  425. 
Kent,  Asa,  iii,  441;  iv,  66. 
Kentnckv,  Methodism  in,  iv,  380. 
Kibbv,  Epaphras,  iv.  35,  72,  73,  481. 
Kidder,  D.  P.,  iv,  466. 
Kilbourn.  David,  iv.  275. 
King.  James,  iv.  Is9. 
Kins.  John,  early  preacher,  i,  87;  "Wes 

ley's  letter  to,  91,  note;  itentioned,  129 

132,  133,  13?,  139,  176,  194,  262;  ii,  42 

66. 
King.  Lord,  on  "Primitive  Church,"  ii 

167,  182. 
Know  It.. n,  Gideon  A.,  iv,  281. 
Kobler,  John,  sketch  of.  iii,  3> »7 ;  goes  tc 

Ohio,  iv,  137,  145,  147,  149,  155. 

Lakin,  Benjamin,  sketch  of.  iv,  97,  394. 

Lakiu,  Thomas,  western  local  i  readier,  il 
136. 

Lackington,  the  publisher,  iv.  457,  note. 

Lambert.  Jeremiah.        93,  134,  387,  847 
iii.  280. 

Lane,  George,  iv.  267. 

Lane,  John.  Iv,  424,  425. 

Lengdon,  of  Vermont,  iv,  74. 

La  ley,  Thomas,  lv,  404. 

Lattamas,  Jamt-s  iv,  280. 

Lawrence,     John,      marries      Embury '» 
widow,  iii,  16'.». 

Lay  representation,  iii.  261. 

Lee.  Jason  and  Daniel,  iv.  478. 

Lee.  Jesse,  i.  B5,  224.  268,  295;  sketch  of. 
4"f,;  ii.  114  298,808;  In  New  England, 
403,  417.  444;  meets  Gar.e  ta 
travels  in  the  East,  4G6;  wi  ty  ren- 
counter, 468,  474,  4  9;  in  the  south.  44; 
again  in  the  East,  206,  U85,  238,  24-3.254, 
264,275;  In  thr  South,  870;  in  be  East, 
■nd  As  ury  iv.  12:  in  the  East, 
iv,  13.  1468,  17'i.  198,  201,  2S6;  last  visit 
to  New  England,  820,  mentioned.  440. 
445,  451,  452;  death  and  character,  5  9. 

Lee,  i ohn,  ii.  460. 

Lee.  Wilson,  tk<  tch  of.  ii,  145,  342,  866; 
iii.  106.  25s.  406;   It,  814, 
.  ..  iv,  268. 

Liberality,    doctrinal,   of   Methodl«m,    11 
216 

Li.'ht-stfot  Chapel,  Baltimore,  ii 

Lillard,  Joseph,  pioneer  preacher  in  Illi- 
nois, 1 

Lindsay,  Marcus,  iv.  435. 

L  it,  early  preacher,  I,  24'; 

il.  15. 

Li;. pet,  Gei  cral,  of  Cranston,  II,  475;  1 1 L, 

re    and    Methodism,   (see    Boor 
Pnbilstlnf  ) 


518 


INDEX. 


Littlejolm,  John,  ii,  42,  43. 

Litnrgv,  early  Methodist,  ii,  166,  183,  196, 

U7,  198,298;  iii,  20. 
Local   preachers,   their  services,   ii,   188, 

235,  35S;  iii,  370;  iv,  1S6;  ordination, 

445,  450. 
Lodge,  Nathan,  iv,  242. 
"Log   Meeting-house,"   Strawbridge's,   i, 

73. 
Long  Island,  Webb  there,  i,  65;  Method- 
ism there,  iii,  164. 
Losee,  William,  first  itinerant  in  Canada, 

ii,  392,  397;  iii,  169,  170,  172,  174. 
Lotspcich,  William,  iv,  434. 
Louisiana,  iv,  201,  329  ;  Methodism  there, 

399. 
Lovely  Lane  Chapel,  Baltimore,  ii,  20, 

181,  244. 
J»owth.  Bishop  of  London,  Wesley  solicits 

him  to  ordain  preachers  for  America, 

ii,  164,  1S3. 
Loyalty,  political,  of  the  Church,  iii,  34S, 

349;  iv,  180. 
Lucas,  Thomas,  iv,  243. 
Lucki-y,  S.imuel,  iv,  258,  283,  275. 
Lye  I,  Thomas,  iv,  200. 

M'Oaine,  Alexander,  and  Slavery,  iv,  182. 
M'Carty,    James,   Canadian    martyr,    ii, 

395. 
M'Claskey,   ii,  318;  account  of,  iii,  134; 

mentioned,  440,  443,  445. 
M'Clellan,  General,  iv,  41. 
M'Clelland,  Thomas,   local  preacher,  iv, 

84,  85. 
M'Clure,  John,  iv,  407. 
M'Coombs,  Lawrence,  account  of,  iii,  137 ; 

iv,  61. 
M'Cormick,  James,  iii,  78,  SI ;  sketch  of, 

317;  founds  Methodism  in  Ohio,  322; 

iv,  74,  106,  136,  139,  et  seq.,  147. 
M'Cul  ,  James,  iv,  105. 
M'Culloch,  Major,  a  zealous  layman,  iii, 

326. 
M'Farland,  layman  of  Charlestown,  iii,  364 ; 

iv,  199. 
M'Gaw,  Rev.  Dr.,  friend  of  Methodists,  i. 

319,  821:  ii,  127,  170. 
M'Geary,  John,  in  Newfoundland,  ii,  880, 

881. 
M*Henry,  Barnabas,  ii,  356,  364;    sketch 

of  iii,  293;  iv,  106,  119. 
M'Kain.  Andrew,  iv,  263. 
M-Kendree,  Willi  im,  ii,  71,  111;   iii,  31, 

44;  sketch  of,  s2,  335,  393;  iv,  96,  109, 

113.  118,  129,  157,  161:  on  slav  ry,  176. 

283.  355,  430;    with   Young.  404,  428: 

made  bishop,  445;  mentioned,  446,  443, 

45J. 
M"Lean.  Judge,  iv,  108:  sketch  of,  330. 
M'Lenahan,  William,  iii,  349,  465. 
M'Minn,  Jedediah.  iv,  202. 
M'Robert's,  Garrett's  colaborer,  i,  182, 184, 

847. 
M;.dden,  Thomas,  iii.  494. 
Magazine  of  Dr.  Phoebus,  ii.  114;  Meth- 
odist, iii,  340,  361 ;  iv,  30,  451,  4f  3,  460. 


Magee.  John  and  William,  originate  camp- 
meeting-3,  iv,  114, 161. 

Mair,  George,  ii,  *8,  88,  120. 

Major,  John,  ii.  49,  52 ;  iii,  101. 

Manakintown  Conference,  ii,  74,  79;  ditto 
of  O'Kelly,  iii,  34. 

Manly,  Robert,  iv,  151. 

Mann,  John,  local  preacher  in  New  York, 
i,  104,  418;  in  Nova  Scotia,  ii,  382. 

Mariners'  Church,  Boston,  iv,  300. 

Marriage  with  unbelievers  rot  allow «d.  If 
204;  iv,  180. 

Mather,  Alexander,  i,  14 

Martin,  Henry,  iv,  324. 

Marsden.  Jo  hua's,  account  ^f  American 
Methodism,  iv,  186. 

Massie,  Peter,  ii,  365. 

Matthew,  Lasley,  ii,  344.  346:  iv,  81,  84. 

Max  field,  Thomas,  i,  38,  and  coke,  ii, 
152. 

Merritr,  Le  Roy,  iv,  242. 

Merritt,  Timothy,  iii,  504;  iv,  46. 

Merwin,  Samuel,  iii,  455,  495;  iv,  477 

Metcalf,  Henry,  ii,  134 

Methodi  m  adapted  to  the  new  world,  i, 
17,  26;  what  is  it?  i,  29,  36;  its  early 
history,  i,  31.  et  *eq. ;  development  of 
its  practical  system,  i,  37;  ii,  219;  its 
liberality,  i,  40;  ii,  216;  introducti  n 
into  the  United  States,  i.  54,  e*  *eq„  SI ; 
Us  early  American  missionaries,  i.  S3, 
et  s»q. ;  relative  prog  ess  in  he  United 
Stat  s,  i,  45,  not ■•;  iv,  194;  first  iecod 
in  English  Minutes,  i,  110;  during  the 
Araeiican  Revolution,  i,  269,  2&6,  415; 
causes  of  its  success,  iv,  491. 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  prepara 
tions  for  its  organization,  ii,  151,  181, 
1^5;  reasons  for,  162,  165;  precedes  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
United  States,  166,  240;  Wesley's  de- 
signs followed,  189;  theology  of,  205; 
piactical  sys  em  of,  219;  iv,  456;  its 
statistical  results,  487  ;  causes  of  its 
success,  491. 

Methodist  Protestant  Church,  iii,  262;  iv, 
83. 

Mills,  N.  B.,  ii,  335,  in  New  England,  463; 
in  the  West,  iv,  75. 

Mills,  Samuel,  iv,  241. 

Mills,  William,  iv,  281. 

Michigan,  Methodism  there,  iv,  154,  851. 

Minutes,  the,  ii,  195,  201,  219. 

Missionary  Societv,  iv,  435,  437,  477. 

Mis-ions,  Methodist,  iii,  4S1  ;  Indian,  \y 
363,435;  collections  for,  451 ;  sketch  ol 
472 ;  Wesleyan.  473. 

Missionaries,  Wesley's,  to  America,  i  93. 

Missi  sippi,  Methodism  in,  iv,  212,  328, 
329,  330,  366,  899,  423. 

Missouri,  Methodism  in,  iv,  829;  Walket 
there,  857,  365. 

Mitchell,  Joseph,  iv,  13,  49,  54. 

Mitche  1,  Wiliinm,  oiganizes  first  clasn  in 
Michigan,  iv,  154. 

Mononcue,  Indian  preacher,  iv,  48"*. 

Moore,  Daniel,  iv,  282. 


1  X  D  E  X. 


519 


Moravians  and  Methodism.  1.  88.  Pennln^tor,   Eobert,   layman   of   Penns 

M  r_-an,  General,  Quinn  at  his  deathbed.      Valley.  I 'a.,  ii,  13S. 

iv.  i'5.  Perr  ction.    ChrPtiarr,    11,   209;    defined, 

Mo   ar  v.  Prter.  -ketch  of,  ii.  10G:  in  the     218. 

West,  843:  mentioned   iii.  136.  889.         Perigao,  Nathan.  1. 191.  192. 193. 
M-nell.  Thomas,  ii,  501 ;   iii,  49;  sketch  Period!  -als.  iv.  451,  4.".3.  46o. 

of  141.  1ST.  Perry  Ha  1.  i.  236.  '.2S;  desciipfon  of.  II, 

lior  is.    Th  mas   A,  ir,  342,   84.».  367;      17'J;  mention  d,  iii   124,365;  iv,  235. 

sketch  of.  890.  Pe^s.  opposition  to.  iv.  453. 

M'  untain's,  Bishop,  account  of  Canada,  Philadelphia.  Webb  there,  i,  65;  Wesleys 

iii.  173.  I     mi  s.onaries  there,  99;    Asbury  th.-re, 

Muilge.  Enoch,  fi  si   native  itinerant  of     119. 


New    England,   ii.   146;  sketch    of.   iii 

*18;  iv.  .3.  4i.  72. 
Monger.  Philip  iv.  66. 
Myers,  Lewis,  iv,  204,  455. 


Phoebus,  WHiam,  ii.  114. 
Physical  phenomena  of  relidous  excite- 
ment, i,  261,  3-2,  4i»4;  iv.  432. 
Pickeriiiir.  George,  iii,  18d;  iv,  303,  319, 
446.  455. 

Hast  Wil  iam  iv.  4-3.  IPhnnan.  Ijmatius,  ii,  S\  158. 

Nazrev.  Afr  can  bishop,  iv.  261.  PUmoor,  Joseph,  s  nt  to  America,  i  93; 

Neal.  lieorge  loea.  preacher  in  Canada,  ii,      account   of,    9-.   1"4;    menti  ned     119, 
*i;  iii   189.  12.1,  139   166:  latter  y.  ars  and  death  of, 

Ne<*   Eng'aml.  Methodism  there,  ii.  403:      109;  further  mentioned,  ls2,  1»3,  2;9; 
its  CaUinisiic  theology.  4  6:   iv,  3  '6:      ii,  21. 
it-  first  Coolerence,  4s5,  498;  furthe;  Pier  e.  Lovick,  iv,  210. 
progress,  ii.  2M6,  346.  498;  iv.  11,  2-6.  Pierce.  Beridiek,  iv.  210. 


305;  i.j  1810,885;  by  1320.886 

Neu  hall.  Ebenezer  F.,  iv  66. 

Newman,  Jonathan  i .  329. 

New  i:..  belle,  Methodism  there,  i,  107. 

New  Y  rk   Meth  di-ni  iliere.  i.  "4 

l'.ichrnond.  iv.  204,  210,  415,  417. 
Nora    >co  ia.    ii,    ^43.   260;    Garret  son 

the  e,  884,      i 


Ogd  n.  B  tijamin.  ii.  860. 

aptaln  Joseph,  in  Illinois,  iv,  353. 
■ .  Joseph,  i. . 
Ohio,  Methodism  in,  iv.  888,  3-9.  880. 
«•  K-  .  y,  -I  ran  -  52,   78,   188,  180 

opposes  slavery,  251;  his  Church  con 
-v.  iii.  16.  17.  18,  20,  21;  secedes 
MiDSt-quent   i  Asbury".-  Quail.  James,  iv.  248 

last  interview  w  th  him,  85;  mentioned.  (Quarter  v  B  'View,  Methodist  iv,  460.  4»*» 
40,  47.  5S  .       _       272,  846,  Quinn    James,  Hi,  886;  sketch  of,  iv,  79, 


Pierce.  Thomas  C,  iv,  37. 

Pinnell.  .Jess  •.  iv.  241. 

P<  Dtavice,  Pierre  de.  accompanies  Coke 

to  America,  iii.  338.  365. 
Powell.  D  urv.  iv.  415. 
Poythress,  Francis,  i.  299;  earlv  Hfe,  ii, 

22,  185;  in  the  W.st.  887;  iii,  281,  289, 

299;  iv.  14.  109,  161. 
Preacher,  a  young,  and  Bishop  Roberts, 

iv.  90. 
Prea  hers,  duties  of.  ii.  200,  225. 
Pri  -t.  Zadok.  -ketch  of.  iii,  231,  27S. 
Prindle.  Andrew,  iv.  -_'74. 
Protestant  Ep  sco;  al  Church,  ii.  163,  198. 
••Punch,  black,"  iii,  85a 


35  ,871.  44-2.  443    note,  486. 
Olin.  Mepben.  iv.  -_'u7. 

early      antislavery 

p  encher.  iv.  178,  174. 

er,  Daniel,  sketch  of,  iii,  227    -" 

iv.  T.    i 
Otter bei     i.  216,217.284,8  . 
Owen,  Anning,  s..etch  o£  ii,  888, 

157.  46 
Owen.  Kirbard.  first  na'ive  local  preacher 

of  the  Unite     - 

J91.  ,  I 
Owens.  1  homas,  iv.  4_'4. 

Pac.'tt.  Henry,  iv.  -.'43. 

i'fcl   tin-*-,  th*  Iri.-h   b  -to-y  of.  i.  It 

fo'  nd  Metliod  mii  in  New  Y«>r, 
Parkt-  .  - 
Par  ri.l^   tft/ilHam.  ii.  «,  - 

r.  'i.  16o. 
i'av titer.  Ja 
Pvdicurd,  Caleb,  i.  lei;  0,  30,  35,  48,  54, 

9>,  116 


88,  91,  93,  345,  tfs& 

Bagan,  John,  Iv,  1S9. 
P.andle.  Josiah,  iv,  198,201. 

P.ankin.  1  homas.  sent  to  America.  1.  142; 
sketch  of,  14  ;  in  America,  i57,  208, 
2*7.  240,  26..  280,  296  32-;  re  urns  to 
England,  385;   charact  r  and  death    .f, 

335:    further  mentioned,  ii,  13.  19,  29, 

Bedstone  Circuit  11.  134;  Conference 
there,  274;  account  of,  3  18 ;  iv.  163, 
331. 

Seed,  Nelson,  i.  :J45;  sketch  of.  ii,  67.  4vo. 

Bembeit  Hall.  iii.  45     57;  iv,  K19,  r-U. 

Ii-strii  •  441. 

on,  American,  i.  19,  28,  •&>.  .'06; 
the,  and  Meibodium,  269 

tbe    ekrrg      an<l     L'Tt". ;     Ml 
preach    s  himL   -J".7.  8  2;    pr^L'r  m   of 
Methotnsm  during,  i.  287,  4.'. ;    i.  18.  26, 
18,  'A    168,  2  -,  5"7;  ili.iiiksg.ving  Tor, 
Iii,  349. 


520 


INDEX. 


Richardson,  Marvin,  iv,  253. 
Richmond,  Stephen.iv,  282. 
Richmond,    Va.,    Methodism    there,    iv, 

200. 
RigK'.n,  Benton,  iv,  190. 
'"  Rigging  loft,  old,"  in  New  York,  i,  56. 
Riggs.  Hosea,  in  Illinois,  iv,  353. 
Robidn,  John,  first  Canadian  local  preach- 
er, ii,  400. 
Roberts,  George,  in  New  England,  ii,  435; 

sketch  of,  439.  458;  mentioned,  iii.  121, 

242.  247,  253,  473. 
Roberts,  Robert  R.,  bishop,  iii,  336;  iv, 

76;   sketch   of,  84,  331;   made  bishop, 

453. 
Robertson,  Nathan,  first  layman  in  Indi- 
ana, iv,  152. 
Robinson,  Archibald,  iv,  244. 
Rodda,  Martin,  early  p  eacher,  i,  264,  265, 

278,  355:  misc  induct  in   politics,  33S; 

re  urns   to  England,   339;    mentioned, 

ii,  70. 
Rogers,  Evan,  iii,  273. 
Rol  ins,  Isaac,  early  preacher,  i,  133;  his 

melancholy  death,  ii,  123. 
Romer,  Dr.,  translates  the  Discipline,  iii, 

4  6. 
KoszeL  Stephen  G.,  sketch  of,  iii,  110. 
Ruff,  Daniel,  i.  2n6,  353,  355;  ii,  17,  26. 
Rumph,  Jacob,  iv,  242. 
Rash,  Dr.,  of  Philadelphia,  iii,  408. 
Rushinoiv,  iii,  177. 
Ru  sell,  General,  ii,  353,  356,  3G9,  370;  iii, 

51 ;  iv,  160. 
Russell,  -lames,  iv,  206. 
Russell,  John,  iv.  2S1. 
Ruter,  Manin,  iii,  496;  iv,  69,  303,  314, 

318,  395,  396,  430,  4bl,  469. 
Ryan,  Daniel,  iv.  280. 
Ryan,   Henry,  iii,  450,  461;   iv,  55,  272, 

277,  452. 
Ryland,  William,  account  of,  iii,  400. 

Sabin,  Elijah,  iv,  56,  70,  315. 
Sacramental  controversy  of  early  Meth- 
odism, i,  77,  161,  350;  ii,  26,  28,  46,  56, 

59;  its  importance  and  character,  64,  73, 

et  seq.,  9>»,  103,  164. 
Sacraments,  how  administered,  ii,  204. 
Saint  George's,  in  Philadelphia,  i,  120. 
Salaries  of  preacheis,  ii,  201;  iii,  19;  iv, 

172. 
Sale,  John,  sketch  of,  iv,  107, 148, 149,  33S; 

on  slavery,  431. 
Sampson,  Jos  ph,  iv,  275,  819. 
8. notification,  i,  36:  iv,  294. 
Sands.  Stephen,  of  John-street  Church,  ii, 

170. 
£  inford,  Aaron,  New  Eng'and  layman,  ii, 

425;  iv,  286,  note. 
Sargent,  Thomas  F.,  account  of,  iii,  140; 

iv,  228. 
Savannah,  Mcthodi-m  there,  iv,  193. 
Stwyer,  Joseph,  iii,  47  7,  478,  479,  482,  483, 

484,494;  iv,  275. 
Schools,  Sunday,  beguo,  H,  503;  history 

of,  504. 


IScott,  Judge,  iii,  76,  112;  account  of,  800, 

I    316;  iv,  112,146. 

Sears,  Captain,  conversion  of,  ii,  806. 

Seney,  Robert,  iv,  258. 

Senier,  Anthony,  iv,  243. 

Shadf  rd,  George,  sent  to  America,  i.  142; 
account  of,  149;  mention  d,  159,  212, 
242,  279,  292,  297,  299,  306,  418 ;  returns 
to  England,  33t»;  further  mentioned,  ii, 
29,  57,  126,  162. 

Shane,  early  preacher,  iv,  91. 

Sharp,  >olomon,  iii,  413. 

Shaw,  William,  western  local  preacher,  ti, 
136. 

Shewell,  Henry,  local  preacher,  iv,  92, 151, 
334. 

Shiun,  Asa,  ii,  843;  iv.  82,  92, 151,  452. 

Slavery,  eaily  Conference  action  on,  U, 
77,  112,  113,  133;  at  the  Christmas  Con- 
ference, 19v);  Coke  and  Jarratt  on,  246; 
Coke  mobbed  for,  247;  antidaverv  ac- 
tion, 250,  251,  267;  iii,  340,  318;  Coke 
on,  353;  Asbury  on,  358;  Dougharty 
mobbed,  388;  Gruber  prosecuted,  482; 
iv,  251 ;  again  in  the  General  Confer- 
ence, iv,  174,  182,  445,  451,  454;  Asbury 
and,  226,  236;  Axley  and,  369,  in  the 
West,  430. 

Smith,  Daniel,  ii,  435,  437. 

Smith.  Gad,  iv,  324. 

Smith,  Henry,  sketch  of,  iii,  76,  317;  in 
the  West,  324.  327;  iv,  105,  142. 

Smith,  Is.  ac,  sketch  ot;  ii,  140;  iii,  57,  884 

Smith,  James,  iii,  400,401. 

Smitu,  John,  ii,  147;  iv,  281. 

Smith,  Lemuel,  ii,  329;  iii,  469. 

Smith,  Thomas,  iii,  379,  415;  iv.  269 

Sneth  n,  Nicholas,  re,  lies  to  o'Kel  j,  Hi, 
34,  877;  ske.ch  of,  259;  iv,  63,  159,  164, 
171,  175,  452. 

Snelling,  Joseph,  iv,  49.  61. 

Societies,  what  were  they?  ii,  235. 

So.de,  Joshua,  ii,  67;  iii,  218,  499:  sketch 
of,  iv.  44;  mentioned.  300,  315,  441.  477. 

South  hold,  L.  1.,  curious  origin  of  Meth- 
odism there,  iii,  165. 

Spaulding,  Justin,  ii,  481. 

Spicer,  Tobias,  iv,  263. 

Spr.ggs,  Samuel,  early  preacher,  i,  419. 

S.aten  Island,  Asbury  there,  i,  123. 

Stirling,  James,  Methodist  ayrnan,  i,  392. 

Stevenson,  Thomas,  pioneer,  ii.  361. 

Stewards,  ii,  235;  how  appointed,  iv,  451. 

Stewart,  John,  missionary  to  Indians,  iv, 
435,  477. 

Still  ngfleet's  Irenicum,  cited  by  Washyy, 
ii,  167. 

Stillwell,  Wm.  M.,  iv,  246. 

St.  Louis,  Walker  there,  iv,  359 

Stocking,  layman,  iv,  72. 

Stone,  Joseph,  iv,  243. 

Stoneman,  Jesse,  iv,  13, 151. 

Strange,  John,  sketch  of,  iv,  3s* 

Strawbridge.  Robert,  skeich  of,  i,  71; 
founds  Methodism  in  Maryland,  78; 
death  and  character,  78, 133;  mention- 
ed, 188, 139,  176,  244. 


INDEX. 


521 


Btnart  professor  of  Andovrr,  opinion  or 

Arminius.  i.  80. 
Btnbbs,  Harriet,  mission  teacher,  iv,  4-37. 
Bt   <lv,  course   of,  for   ministerial   candi- 

d:iieS.  iv.    ; 

Bturdevant,  Matt:  ew  P.,  iv.  201. 

"Sunday  service,"1  the.  ii,  197. 

Bunday,    John,    Indian    missionary,    iv, 

187. 
Sunday-schools,  Methodism  and,  iv,  464. 
Swain,  Richard,  iv.  2b0. 
Bwayze,  William,  iv.  339. 
Swe  tzer,  Peter,  companion  of  Embury,  i, 

50.  52.  CT,  10a 
Bwoop,  fr  end  of  Otteibein  and  Asburv,  i. 

216,  217,  234 

Taney,  Judge,  on  slavery,  iv,  251. 

Tatum.  Isliam.  ii.  22. 

Taylor,  Edward  T.,  iv.  295. 

Tavlo  .  Joshua,  sketch  of,  iii,  223;  iv.  45. 
61,  73. 

Temperance  ref>rm.  early  Conference 
action  on.  ii,  77,  113;  iii,  34U;  Axley 
and.  iv.  37o.  480,  45  ,455;  G  Deral  Con- 
ference on  451. 

Tennessee,  Methodism  in.  iv,  329,  330. 

Thatcher.  Wi  liam,  iii,  4)9 ;  iv,  253. 

UheoN.gv,  Methodist,  i,  29;  ii,  20.5,  410; 
iv,  49 1". 

v.  New  Engl  ind,  ii,  406. 

Theological  schools,  Me.bodtst.  iv  407, 
4T0. 

Thorn  is,  Samuel,  iv,  2S1. 

Thorp.  I  honi  s.  iv,  254,  2S2. 

Tiffin,  Edwa  d,  iii,  112,  310;  iv,  143,  144, 
163. 

Tobacc  •,  for'  idden  by  W>  sley,  allowed 
bj  American  Methodism,  ii,  -25. 

Tollison.  da  nes,  iv.  190. 

Toiten.  Joseph,  iv,  888. 

Toy.  Joaepb,  ii.  256. 

Tracts,  iv.  445:  society  for,  463. 

Travis,  John,  in  Missouri,  iv,  368;  in  the 

SOU   IVV    St.  4o5. 

Travis  Joseph,  iv,  425. 

ramble,  .lane,  sketch  of,  iv,  345,  436. 

Trn-teea,  II  . 

Tucker,  killed  by  Indians,  ii,  353;  iii.  805, 

329. 
Tuffv,  a  -oldier  preacher  in  Canada,  ii. 

3:4 
Tunntll.  John,  acctunt  of,  ii.  ?4,  3S,  39. 

■i-i.  58,  CJ'J.  278,  _".<:,  496  :  i;i,  .'-9. 
Turck.  Anthony,  iii.  471 ;  iv,  192. 

UnPartantsm  in  New  England,  ii  414. 

I'ni  ed  Stat.>.  adaptation  of  Methodism 
to,  i.  17.  26;  iv.  1-S:   the  r  early  rell 
1        condi  ion.  i.  18:  their  pr  spective 
pop     1  io      i.  24     r  lativ  (population  of 
M  t  odisin,  iv    194. 

Uiriontown  ilYnn  )  Arad  my,  i 

University,  Weeleyan,  Middletown,  <  onn., 
iv.  •_<- 

Van  Cortlandt,  Governor,  ii,  331;  iii,  121 


Vannest.  Peter,  iii,  433;  Iv.  17-63.  267. 
Van  Pelt.  Benjamin,  i,  124;   ii,  35s.  3T8: 

iii.  2-3. 
Van  Pelt,  Peter,  of  -taten  Island,  1,  128 
Van  Schoit.  John.  Iv.  2-2. 
V&sey.  Thomas,  cornea  to  Amcrici  witl 

Coke.  ii.  155;  1  rdabed  by  Wesley,  Lb6 

mentioned,  lb2. 
Virgin,  Charles,  iv,  275. 

Wade,  John,  ii,  17. 

Wager.  Phi.ip,  iii,  265 ;  iv,  13,  52. 

Waggoner.  Samuel,  iv,  243. 

Wales,  Methodism  there,  iv,  491. 

Walker,  Jason,  iv,  325. 

Walker,  Jesse,  sketch  of,  iv.  354. 

Ward's,  Rev.  Jonathan,  attack  on  Meth- 
odism, iv,  62. 

Ward,  Francis,  iv.  2?2. 

Ware,  Thomas,  ii,  :52,  35.  47,  S8;  sketch 
nf.  115,  131;  meets  Coke,  177;  his  la- 
bos,  305,  309;  in  the  West,  349;  in 
Gene;  al  Conference  of  \1Vi,  iii,  24;  con- 
tinued labors,  150,  243,  407,  462;  iv, 
253. 

Wa.ner,  Chrisian,  early  Canadian  lay- 
man, ii,  3'.4,  397  ;  iii,  47S,  4-2,  4b3. 

Washburn.  Ebenez-'f,  iii,  459;  iv,  71. 

Wiishi  igton,  Methodist  bishops  dine  with, 
ii,  25o;  addre  s  him  on  his  inaugura- 
tion, 501;  Morrell  and,  iii,  144;  letter 
of,  to  pre  icher,  849. 

Watters,  Nicholas,  ii,  21;  iii.  393;  iv,  240, 
241. 

Watters.  Wil  iam,  first  native  Methodist 
itinerant  of  the  United  States,  i,  74, 
132;  sketch  of,  .75.  1-6  2.9,  2f>2.  344; 
mention  (1.  ii.  45,  6H,  67,  76,  90,  lb6; 
iii,  269:  rejoins  the  itinerancy,  390. 

Watts"sst.am  engine,  i,  15;  its  imp  rtance 
to  the  new  word,  17. 

Waugb,  Beverly,  iv,  223. 

Wayne,  of  South  Caro'ina,  i',  299. 

We  b.  Ca|  tain,  account  of,  i,  57,  63,  65,  95: 
mention  d,  140,  HI,  147,  156,  .'76;  lat 
ter  veais  and  death  of,  172;  further 
mentioned,  ii,  16.  1H>,  256,  iv,  263. 

W.  bb,  Daniel,  iv,  34 

Webster,  Richard,  I,  76,  86,  135,  244;  ii, 

24. 

Weedon.  Nathan,  iv,  241. 

Wells,  Edgar,  of  Charleston,  S.  C,  ii,  249, 
289;  iii.  868,864. 

Wells,  Joshua,  Iii,  111.3-9;  iv.  14,15.  171 

Wesleys,  the,  I,  81;  John,  in  1 1  eland.  47; 
Charley  141;  John,  and  the  Am.-i  ican 
Revolution,  2-2;  ebang  s  his  opinioi 
on  the  co  oidal  struggle,  26:'.;  jj,  [{£; 
ad^lc-  to  his  American  preachers,  I 
2-5;  i.  181;  and  Coke,  151;  organizes 
the  Metbodlsl  Bptacoiial  Church,  162, 
1-1  :  opinions  oi  Chut  ch  g  rei  nment, 

167,    1-2,    l-.i ;    his    famous    le  t«      on 
;  -     bishops,   192  ;    h  •<   authority 

In  America  recognized,  199,  27-.  197'; 

Charh-.s   a  cu-es  C  k-.  260:   John   de- 
fends him,  200;  death  1  f  Wesley,  288: 


522 


INDEX. 


his  great  services.  290;  his  last  le'ter 
to  Ame  ica.  292;  his  nam-  dropped 
fiom  t<  e  AmiT  can  M  rmtes,  497;  it  is 
restored,  49fei;  mentioned,  iii,  18,  41: 
iv.  4,i7,  495. 

West.  Methodism  in,  ii,  134,  268;  Asbury 
there,  271;  progress  there,  279;  ac- 
count of  Me  hodism  there,  337;  iii, 
280  347;  iv,  74,  1 93,  328,  353,  383,  415. 
461   463. 

Wh  iic 'at,  Richard,  account  of.  ii,  157; 
ordain  d  bv  Wesley,  166;  come*  to 
Araerca.  168;  ment  oned,  182.  284,  2lJ5, 
496;  iii.  38,  note.  75;  iv,  64,  113;  elect- 
ed hi -ho  ,  169,  184,  283;  death,  501. 

Whedon  on  Methodist  theology,  ii,  214. 

White,  Dr.,  ii,  97,  101. 

White,  h  shop  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Coke, 
ii,  l7t>;  menti  ned,  193;  oke's  propo- 
sition to  h  m  of  union  of  Meih  dist  and 
Protestant  Kpisc  pi  Churches,  iii,  41 ; 
iv,  442:  mentioned,  iv,  '260. 

White,  Ebent-zer,  iv.  281. 

White,  -Judge,  i,  307,  309:  shelters  As- 
bnry, SI 0,  369;  ii,  43,  56,  71,  176;  his 
death,  iii.  61. 

White.  M-iry,  i,  314;  ii,  122. 

Whiting,  La  sford,  iv.  281. 

WhitehVld,  George,  i,  37,  42,  ft  seq. ;  last 
visit  'o  Ame  ica,  101 ;  Lee  at  his  grave, 
103;  mention  d.  143,  144,  254,  362,  378, 
40s  4  9,  415,  478;  his  orphan  house,  iii, 
49;  further  mentioned,  122. 

Whit  h  ad,  Thomas,  iv,  274. 

Wh  tforih,  Abraham,  i,  166;  his  fa'l,  2  3, 
245. 

Wilbraham  Academy,  iv,  469. 

Wig  on,  Samuel,  ii,  329. 

W   kins,  early  layman,  i,  305. 

Wilkins  <n,  Thomas,  iv,  128. 

Willard,  iv,  72. 

Williams,  Rev.  Dr.,  attacks  the  Method- 
ists, iii,  245,  253. 

Willia  os,  Robert,  comes  to  America,  i, 
88*  sketch  of  his  labors,  84;  mentioned, 


.31,  165,  176.  811, 133,  224,  252,  262,  290 

ii,  21 ;  iv,  459. 
Williamson,  'Ihomas,  ii,  268,  366. 
Wilds,  Henry,  sketch  of,  ii,  51,  52,  53,  134 

29>.  347;  iii.  17,  287;  death  of,  iv,  240. 
Wilmer,  Lambert,  i,  93,  122. 
Wils  n,  John,  iv,  280,  445. 
Winans,  William,  sketch  of,  iv,  408,  424 
Wise.  Daniel,  iv,  466. 
Witness  of  the  Spirit,  ii,  20S,  211. 
Wit  en,  Za  -hariah.  iv,  242. 
Wood,  Aim  r,  iv,  96. 
Woolsey,  Elijah,  iii,  180,  et  seg.,  194;  It, 

13,  254 
W.  oster,  Hezekiah  C,  iii,  195,  198,  204 

403,  492. 
Woo--ter,    Robert,  local   preacher,   intro- 
duces   Methodism     in    the     Red>tone 

country,  ii,  135,  33S;  iii,  280. 
Wrangles,  Rev.  Dr.,  Swedish   American 

missionary,  encourages  Methodism,   i, 

92. 
Wr'ght,  Richard,  conies  to  America  with 

Asbu;y,  i,  118,  122,  139;  returns  to  En- 

g'and,  172;  mentioned,  223. 
Wright,  William,  ii,  134. 
Wyatt,  Joseph,  ii,  9<. 
WTyatt,  Peter,  iv,  243. 
Wyoming  Valley,  Methodism  there,  ii, 

333 ;  iii,  152. 

Yeargan's  Chapel,  first  Methodist  one  in 

Virginia,  i,  223. 
Year  i  tv,  Jos  ph,  i,  166. 
Yellalee,  Robert,  iii,  498. 
Yellow  fever  in  middle  states,  iii,  54, 114; 

iv.  188. 
Young,  Renjamin,  firs^  itinerant  in  Liu 

r.ois,  iv,  153,  353. 
Young,  David,  sketci,  of,  iv,  376,390,391. 
Young,  Jacob,  sketch  of,  iv,  116,  333. 
Youth  s  Instructor,  a  periodical,  iv,  460. 

Zion's   Herald,   first  Methodist  weeklj 
paper,  iy,  461. 


THE  END. 


